LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 


IT£  LAMPADA  TRA 


/  ^ 


SOCIAL  ENVIRONMENT 

AND 

MORAL  PROGRESS 


Social  Environment 


Moral  Progress 


BY 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace 

O.M.,  D.C.L.Oxon^ 
F.R.S.,  &o. 

Author  of  "  The   Malay   Archipelago."  "  Darwinism," 

"Man'i  Place  in  the  Universe,"  "The  World  of  Life," 

Ac.  &c. 


Cassell  and  Company,  Ltd 

London,   New  York,   Toronto  and  Melbourne 
1914 


First  Edition  March  1913. 
Rtprinted  April  and  June  1913,  June  1914. 


Contents 

PART  I.— HISTORICAL 

CHAPTER  PAGS 

1.  INTRODUCTORY    .        .       .       .       .       ,         i 

2.  MORALITY  AS  BASED  UPON  CHARACTER     .         4 
3;  PERMANENCE  OF  CHARACTER     .        .  -     >•         8 

4.  PERMANENCE  OF  HIGH  INTELLECT     .        .        15 

5.  SPEECH    AND    WRITING    AS    PROOFS    OF 

INTELLIGENCE        .        ...        .        28 

6.  SAVAGES    NOT     MORALLY    INFERIOR    TO 

CIVILISED  RACES    .        .  v    -        •        •        31 

7.  A  SELECTIVE  AGENCY  NEEDED  TO  IMPROVE 

CHARACTER    ....        .        .        .        36 

8.  ENVIRONMENT    DURING   THE    NINETEENTH 

CENTURY        «        ...        .        .        40 

9.  INSANITARY       DWELLINGS      AND       LIFE- 

DESTROYING  TRADES       .        .        .        .        47 

10.  ADULTERATION,  BRIBERY,  AND  GAMBLING  .        55 


vi  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

11.  OUR    ADMINISTRATION   OF    "JUSTICE"    is 

IMMORAL 62 

12.  INDICATIONS      OF      INCREASING      MORAL 

DEGRADATION 67 

PART  II.— THEORETICAL 

13.  NATURAL  SELECTION  AMONG  ANIMALS       .        75 

14.  SELECTION  AS  MODIFIED  BY  MIND     .        .        93 

15.  THE  LAWS  OF  HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRON- 

MENT       103 

1 6.  MORAL  PROGRESS  THROUGH  A  NEW  FORM 

OF  SELECTION 125 

17.  How    TO  INITIATE    AN    ERA    OF    MORAL 

PROGRESS 150 

INDEX         ....'...      159 


Social   Environment 

and 

Moral  Progress 

PART   I.-HISTORICAL 
CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

BEFORE  entering  on  the  question  of  the 
relation  of  morality  to  our  existing  social 
environment,  it  will  be  advisable  to  inquire 
what  we  mean  by  moral  progress,  and 
what  evidence  there  is  that  any  such  pro- 
gress has  occurred  in  recent  times,  or  even 
within  the  period  of  well-established  history. 
By  morals  we  mean  right  conduct,  not 
only  in  our  immediate  social  relations,  but 
also  in  our  dealings  with  our  fellow  citizens 
and  with  the  whole  human  race.  It  is 
based  upon  the  possession  of  clear  ideals 
as  to  what  actions  are  right  and  what  are 
wrong  and  the  determination  of  our  con- 
duct by  a  constant  reference  to  those 
ideals. 

The  belief  was  once  prevalent,  and  is 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

still  held  by  many  persons,  that  a  know- 
ledge of  right  and  wrong  is  inherent  or 
instinctive  in  everyone,  and  that  the  im- 
moral person  may  be  justly  punished  for 
such  wrongdoing  as  he  commits.  But 
that  this  cannot  be  wholly,  if  at  all,  true 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  different 
societies  and  at  different  periods  the  stan- 
dard of  right  and  wrong  changes  consider- 
ably. That  which  at  one  time  and  place 
is  held  to  be  right  and  proper  is,  at  another 
time  or  place,  considered  to  be  not  only 
wrong,  but  one  of  the  greatest  of  crimes. 
The  most  striking  example  of  this  change 
of  opinion  is  that  as  to  slavery,  which  was 
held  to  be  quite  justifiable  by  the  most 
highly  civilised  people  of  antiquity,  and 
hardly  less  so  by  ourselves  within  the 
memory  of  persons  still  living.  The  owners 
of  sugar  estates  in  Jamaica  cultivated  by 
slaves  were  not  stigmatised  as  immoral  by 
their  relatives  in  England  or  by  the  public 
at  large ;  and  it  was  the  horror  excited 
by  the  slave-trade  in  Africa,  and  in  the 
"  middle  passage "  on  the  slave  ships, 
rather  than  by  the  slavery  itself,  that 
so  excited  public  opinion  as  to  lead  to 
the  abolition  first  of  the  one  and  then  of 
the  other. 


i]  Introductory 

We  are  obliged  to  conclude,  therefore, 
that  what  is  commonly  termed  morality 
is  not  wholly  due  to  any  inherent  percep- 
tion of  what  is  right  or  wrong  conduct, 
but  that  it  is  to  some  extent  and  often 
very  largely  a  matter  of  convention,  vary- 
ing at  different  times  and  places  in  accord- 
ance with  the  degree  and  kind  of  social 
development  which  has  been  attained  often 
under  different  and  even  divergent  condi- 
tions of  existence.  The  actual  morality  of 
a  community  is  largely  a  product  of  the 
environment,  but  it  is  local  and  temporary, 
not  permanently  affecting  the  character. 

To  bring  together  the  evidence  in  sup- 
port of  this  view,  to  distinguish  between 
what  is  permanent  and  inherited  and 
what  is  superficial  and  not  inherited,  and 
to  trace  out  some  of  the  consequences  as 
regards  what  we  term  "  morality "  is 
the  purpose  of  the  present  volume. 


CHAPTER  II 

MORALITY  AS  BASED  UPON  CHARACTER 

THOUGH  much  of  what  we  term  morality 
has  no  absolute  sanction  in  human  nature, 
yet  it  is  to  some  extent,  and  perhaps  very 
largely,  based  upon  it.  It  will  be  well, 
therefore,  to  consider  briefly  the  nature 
and  probable  origin  of  what  we  term 
"  character  " — in  individuals,  in  societies, 
and  especially  in  those  more  ancient  and 
more  fundamental  divisions  of  mankind 
which  we  term  "  races." 

Character  may  be  denned  as  the  aggre- 
gate of  mental  faculties  and  emotions 
which  constitute  personal  or  national  indi- 
viduality. It  is  very  strongly  hereditary, 
yet  it  is  probably  subject  to  more  inherent 
variation  than  is  the  form  and  structure 
of  the  body.  The  combinations  of  its  con- 
stituent elements  are  so  numerous  as,  in 
common  language,  to  be  termed  infinite ; 
and  this  gives  to  each  person  a  very  dis- 
tinct individuality,  as  manifested  in  speech, 
in  emotional  expression,  and  in  action. 

4 


Morality  Based  upon  Character 

The  mental  faculties  which  go  to  form 
the  "  character  "  of  each  man  or  woman 
are  very  numerous,  a  large  proportion  of 
them  being  such  as  are  required  for  the 
preservation  of  the  individual  and  of  the 
race,  while  others  are  pre-eminently  social 
or  ethical.  These  latter,  which  impel  us 
to  truth,  to  justice,  and  to  benevolence, 
when  in  due  proportion  to  all  the  other 
mental  faculties,  go  to  form  what  we  dis- 
tinguish as  a  good  or  moral  character,  and 
will  in  most  cases  result  in  actions  which 
meet  with  the  general  approval  of  that 
section  of  society  in  which  we  live  ;  and 
this  approval  reacts  upon  the  character 
so  that  it  often  appears  to  be  better  than 
it  really  is. 

So  great  is  the  effect  of  this  approval 
of  our  fellows  that  it  sometimes  leads  to 
behaviour  quite  different  from  what  it 
would  be  if  this  approval  were  absent. 
This  is  especially  the  case  when  the 
approval  leads  to  wealth  or  positions 
of  dignity  or  advantage.  Occasionally,  in 
cases  of  this  kind  the  individual  cannot 
resist  his  natural  impulses,  and  then  acts 
so  as  to  show  his  underlying  real  character. 
We  term  such  persons  hypocrites  for 
making  us  believe  that  they  were  inher- 

5 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

ently  good,  instead  of  being  so  in  appear- 
ance only  when  the  good  action  was 
profitable  to  them.  Hence  in  a  highly 
complex  state  of  civilisation  it  becomes 
exceedingly  difficult  correctly  to  appraise 
characters  as  moral  or  immoral,  good  or  bad ; 
while  there  is  no  such  difficulty  as  regards 
the  intellectual  and  emotional  aspects  of 
character,  which  are  less  influenced  by  the 
general  environment,  and  which  there  is 
less  temptation  to  conceal. 

All  the  evidence  we  possess  tends  to 
show  that  although  the  actions  of  most 
individuals  are  to  a  considerable  extent 
determined  by  their  social  environment, 
that  does  not  imply  any  alteration  in  their 
character.  Everyone's  experience  of  life, 
and  especially  the  example  of  his  friends 
and  associates,  leads  him  to  repress  his 
passions,  regulate  his  emotions,  and  in 
general  to  use  his  judgment  before  acting, 
so  as  to  secure  the  esteem  of  his  fellows 
and  greater  happiness  for  himself ;  and 
these  restraints,  becoming  habitual,  may 
often  give  the  appearance  of  an  actual 
change  of  character  till  some  great  tempta- 
tion or  violent  passion  overcomes  the  usual 
restraint  and  exhibits  the  real  nature, 
which  is  usually  dormant. 

6 


ii]   Morality  Based  upon  Character 

Now  it  is  this  inherent  and  unchange- 
able character  itself  that  tends  to  be 
transmitted  to  offspring,  and  this  being  the 
case,  there  can  be  no  progressive  improve- 
ment in  character  without  some  selective 
agency  tending  to  such  improvement.  By 
means  of  a  general  discussion  of  the  nature 
and  origin  of  "  Character,"  I  have  else- 
where shown  that  there  is  no  proof  of 
any  real  advance  in  it  during  the  whole 
historical  period.*  I  show  later  on  what 
the  required  selective  agency  is,  and  how 
it  will  come  into  action  automatically 
when,  and  not  until,  our  social  system  is 
so  reformed  as  to  afford  suitable  condi- 
tions. (See  Chapter  XVI.) 

*  See  Character  and  Life,  edited  by  P.  I/.  Parker,  pp.  19-3  u 
(Williams  and  Norgate;  November,  1912.) 


CHAPTER   III 

PERMANENCE  OF  CHARACTER 

I  WILL  now  call  attention  to  a  few  of  the 
facts  which  lead  to  the  conclusion  as  to 
the  stationary  condition  of  general  cha- 
racter from  the  earliest  periods  of  human 
history,  and  presumably  from  the  dawn  of 
civilisation.  In  the  earliest  records  which 
have  come  down  to  us  from  the  past  we 
find  ample  indications  that  general  ethical 
conceptions,  the  accepted  standard  of 
morality,  and  the  conduct  resulting  from 
these,  were  in  no  degree  inferior  to  those 
which  prevail  to-day,  though  in  some  re- 
spects they  differed  from  ours. 

As  examples  of  great  moral  teachers  in 
very  early  times  we  have  Socrates  and 
Plato,  about  400  B.C.  ;  Confucius  and 
Buddha,  one  or  two  centuries  earlier ; 
Homer,  earlier  still ;  the  great  Indian 
Epic,  the  Maha-Bharata,  about  1500  B.C. 
All  these  afford  indications  of  intellectual 
and  moral  character  quite  equal  to  our 
own ;  while  their  lower  manifestations,  as 

8 


Permanence  of  Character 

shown  by  their  wars  and  love  of  gambling, 
were  no  worse  than  corresponding  im- 
moralities to-day. 

In  the  beautiful  translation  by  the 
late  Mr.  Romesh  Dutt,  of  such  portions  of 
the  Maha-Bharata  as  are  best  fitted  to 
give  English  readers  a  proper  conception 
of  the  whole  work,  there  is  a  striking 
episode  entitled  "  Woman's  Love,"  in 
which  the  heroine,  a  princess,  by  repeated 
petitions  and  reasonings  persuades  Yama, 
the  god  of  death,  to  give  back  her  hus- 
band's spirit  to  the  body.  It  is  described 
in  the  following  verses  : 

"  And  the  sable  King  was  vanquished,  and  he  turned 

on  her  again, 
And  his  words  fell  on  Savitri  like  the  cooling  summer 

rain: 
'  Noble  woman,  speak  thy  wishes,  name  thy  boon 

and  purpose  high, 
What  the  pious  mortal  asketh  gods  in  heaven  may 

not  deny ! ' 

"  '  Thou  hast,'  so  Savitri  answered,  '  granted  father's 

realm  and  might, 
To  his  vain  and  sightless  eyeballs  hath  restored  the 

blessed  light ; 
Grant  him  that  the  line  of  monarchs  may  not  al) 

untimely  end, 

That  his  kingdom  to  Satyavan  and  Savitri's  sons 
descend ! ' 

9 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

"  '  Have  thy  wishes,'  answered  Yama ;    '  thy  good 

lord  shall  live  again, 
He  shall  live  to  be  a  father,  and  your  children,  too, 

shall  reign; 
For  a  woman's  troth  endureth  longer  than  the 

fleeting  breath, 
And  a  woman's  love  abideth  higher  than  the  doom 

of  death.'  " 

And  when  at  the  end  of  the  epic,  the 
kings  and  warriors  welcome  each  other  in 
the  spirit  world,  we  find  the  following 
noble  conception  of  the  qualities  and 
actions  which  give  them  a  place  there  : 

"  These  and  other  mighty  warriors,  in  the  earthly 

battle  slain, 
By  their  valour  and  their  virtue  walk  the  bright 

ethereal  plain ! 
They  have  lost  their  mortal  bodies,  crossed  the 

radiant  gate  of  heaven, 
For  to  win  celestial  mansions  unto  mortals  it  is 

given ! 
Let  them  strive  by  kindly  action,  gentle  speech, 

endurance  long, 
Brighter  life  and  holier  future  unto  sons  of  men 

belong ! " 

Mr.  Dutt  informs  us  that  he  has  not 
only  reproduced,  as  nearly  as  possible,  the 
metre  of  the  original,  but  has  aimed  at 
giving  us  a  literal  translation.  No  one  can 
read  his  beautiful  rendering  without  feel- 

10 


nq        Permanence  of  Character 

ing  that  the  people  it  describe^  were  our 
intellectual  and  moral  equals. 

The  wonderful  collection  of  hymns 
known  as  the  Vedas  is  a  vast  system  of 
religious  teaching  as  pure  and  lofty  as 
those  of  the  finest  portions  of  the  Hebrew 
scriptures.  A  few  examples  from  the 
translation  by  Sir  Monier  Monier- Williams 
will  show  that  its  various  writers  were 
fully  our  equals  in  their  conceptions  of  the 
universe,  and  of  the  Deity,  expressed  in 
the  finest  poetic  language.  The  following 
is  a  portion  of  a  hymn  to  "  The  Investing 
Sky  "  : 

"  The  mighty  Varuna,  who  rules  above,  looks  down 
Upon  these  worlds,  his  kingdom,  as  if  close  at  hand. 
When  men  imagine  they  do  aught  by  stealth,  he 

knows  it. 

No  one  can  stand  or  walk,  or  softly  glide  along 
Or  hide  in  dark  recess,  or  lurk  in  secret  cell 
But  Varuna  detects  him  and  his  movements  spies. 


This  boundless  earth  is  his, 
His  the  vast  sky,  whose  depth  no  mortal  e'er  can 

fathom. 

Both  oceans  find  a  place  within  his  body,  yet 
In  the  small  pool  he  lies  contained ;  whoe'er  should 

flee 

Far,  far  beyond  the  sky  would  not  escape  the  grasp 
Of  Varuna,  the  king.    His  messengers  descend 
ii 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

Countless  from  his  abode — for  ever  traversing 
This  world,  and  scanning  with  a  thousand  eyes  its 

inmates. 
Whate'er  exists  within  this  earth,  and  all  within  the 

sky, 

Yea,  all  that  is  beyond  King  Varuna  perceives. 
May  thy  destroying  snares  cast  sevenfold  round  the 

wicked, 
Entangle  liars,  but  the  truthful  spare,  O  King." 

The  following  passage  from  a  "  Hymn 
to  Death,"  shows  a  perfect  confidence  in 
that  persistence  of  the  human  personality 
after  death,  which  is  still  a  matter  of  doubt 
and  discussion  to-day : 

"  To  Yama,  mighty  king,  he  gifts  and  homage  paid. 
He  was  the  first  of  men  that  died,  the  first  to  brave 
Death's  rapid  rushing  stream,  the  first  to  point  the 

road 
To   heaven,    and   welcome  others  to  that  bright 

abode. 
No  power  can  rob  us  of  the  home  thus  won  by 

thee. 
O  king,  we  come ;   the  born  must  die,  must  tread 

the  path 
That  thou  hast  trod — the  path  by  which  each  race 

of  men, 

In  long  succession,  and  our  fathers  too,  have  passed. 
Soul  of  the  dead  !  depart ;  fear  not  to  take  the  road — 
The  ancient  road — by  which  thy  ancestors  have 

gone; 

Ascend  to  meet  the  god — to  meet  thy  happy  fathers, 
Who  dwell  in  bliss  with  him.- 

12 


iirj        Permanence  of  Character 

Return  unto  thy  home,  O  soul !  Thy  sin  and  shame 
Leave  thou  behind  on  earth ;    assume  a  shining 

form — 
Thy  ancient  shape — refined  and  from  all  taint  set 

free." 

In  this  we  find  many  of  the  essential 
teachings  of  the  most  advanced  religious 
thinkers — the  immediate  entrance  to  a 
higher  life,  the  recognition  of  friends,  the 
persistence  of  the  human  form,  and  the 
shining  raiment,  typical  of  the  loss  of 
earthly  taint. 

But  besides  these  special  deities,  we 
find  also  the  recognition  of  the  one  supreme 
God,  as  in  the  following  hymn : 

"  What  god  shall  we  adore  with  sacrifice  ? 
Him  let  us  praise,  the  golden  child  that  rose 
In  the  beginning,  who  was  born  the  Lord — 
The  one  sole  lord  of  all  that  is — who  made 
The  earth,  and  formed  the  sky,  who  giveth  life, 
Who  giveth  strength,  whose  bidding  gods  revere, 
Whose  hiding  place  is  immortality, 
Whose  shadow,  death ;    who  by  his  might  is  king 
Of  all  the  breathing,  sleeping,  waking  world — 
Who  governs  men  and  beasts ;    whose  majesty 
These  snowy  hills,  this  ocean  with  its  rivers, 
Declare  ;  of  whom  these  spreading  regions  form 
The  arms  by  which  the  firmament  is  strong, 
Earth  firmly  planted,  and  the  highest  heavens 
Supported,  and  the  clouds  that  fill  the  air 
13 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

Distributed  and  measured  out ;   to  whom 
Both  earth  and  heaven,  established  by  his  will, 
Look  up  with  trembling  mind ;   in  whom  revealed 
The  rising  sun  shines  forth  above  the  world." 

If  we  make  allowance  for  the  very 
limited  knowledge  of  Nature  at  this  early 
period,  we  must  admit  that  the  mind 
which  conceived  and  expressed  in  appro- 
priate language,  such  ideas  as  are  every- 
where apparent  in  these  Vedic  hymns, 
could  not  have  been  in  any  way  inferior 
to  those  of  the  best  of  our  religious  teachers 
and  poets — to  our  Miltons  and  our  Tenny- 
sons. 


CHAPTER   IV 

PERMANENCE   OF  HIGH   INTELLECT 

ACCOMPANYING  this  fine  literature  and 
moral  teaching  in  Ancient  India  was  a 
civilisation  equal  to  that  of  early  classical 
races,  in  grand  temples,  forts  and  palaces, 
weapons  and  implements,  jewelry  and 
exquisite  fabrics.  Their  architecture  was 
highly  decorative  and  peculiar,  and  has 
continued  to  quite  recent  times.  Owing 
perhaps  to  the  tropical  or  sub-tropical 
climate,  with  marked  wet  and  dry  seasons, 
the  oldest  buildings  that  have  survived, 
even  as  ruins,  are  less  ancient  than  those 
of  Greece  or  Rome — but  those  correspond- 
ing in  age  to  the  period  of  our  Gothic 
cathedrals  are  immensely  numerous,  and 
show  an  originality  of  design,  a  wealth  of 
ornament,  and  a  perfection  of  workman- 
ship equal  to  those  of  any  other  buildings 
in  the  world. 

Two  other  great  civilisations  of  which 
we  have  authentic  records  are  those  of 
Egypt  and  Mesopotamia,  both  of  which 

15 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress    [CH. 

appear  to  have  been  much  older  than  those 
of  India  or  Greece.  But  whereas  Egypt 
has  left  us  the  most  continuous  series  of 
tombs,  temples,  and  palaces  in  the  world, 
abundant  works  of  art  in  statues  and  sculp- 
tures, together  with  characteristic  reliefs 
and  wall  paintings,  showing  the  whole 
public  and  domestic  life  of  the  people, 
Mesopotamia  is  represented  only  by  vast 
masses  of  ruins  on  the  sites  of  the  ancient 
cities  of  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  from  which 
have  been  disinterred  many  fine  statues 
and  reliefs,  exhibiting  a  very  distinct  style 
of  art.  For  more  than  2,000  years  the 
history  and  remains  of  this  once  greatest 
of  civilisations  was  absolutely  unknown, 
except  by  a  few  doubtful  facts  and  names 
in  Greek  and  Hebrew  writings.  But  during 
the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  a 
band  of  explorers  and  students,  such  as 
Layard  and  Rawlinson,  made  known,  first 
the  works  of  art,  and,  latterly,  an  enormous 
quantity  of  small  bricks  and  stone  slabs, 
thickly  covered  with  a  peculiar  kind  of 
writing  known  as  the  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions, which,  after  an  enormous  amount 
of  labour,  have  at  length  been  translated. 
Whole  libraries  of  these  brick-books  have 
been  discovered,  and  as  the  reading  and 

16 


iv]    Permanence  of  High  Intellect 

translating  goes  on,  we  obtain  a  knowledge 
of  the  history,  laws,  customs,  and  daily 
life  of  this  ancient  people  almost  equal  to 
that  we  now  possess  of  the  ancient  Indians 
and  Egyptians. 

For  our  present  purpose,  however, 
Egyptian  civilisation  is  the  most  important, 
because  it  presents  us  with  the  most  defi- 
nite proof  of  the  attainment  of  a  high 
degree  of  what  is  specially  scientific  attain- 
ment at  the  very  dawn  of  historical  know- 
ledge. This  is  well  exhibited  by  that  most 
wonderful  work  of  constructive  art — the 
Great  Pyramid  of  Gizeh — which,  though 
not  quite  the  earliest,  is  the  largest  and 
most  remarkable  of  about  seventy  pyra- 
mids in  various  parts  of  Egypt,  and  has 
been  more  thoroughly  explored  and  studied, 
both  as  to  its  proportions,  construction 
and  uses,  than  any  of  the  others. 

This  pyramid  is  known  historically  to 
have  been  built  by  the  order  of  King  Cheops 
(or  Khufu),  and  the  date  of  its  design  and 
erection  can  be  pretty  accurately  fixed  as 
about  3700  B.C.,  or  nearly  2,000  years 
earlier  than  that  of  the  civilisation  depicted 
in  the  Indian  and  Greek  epics.  The  internal 
structure  of  this  pyramid  is  its  most  in- 
teresting feature,  because  it  shows  clearly 
c  17 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

that  it  was  designed  to  be  not  only  the 
tomb  of  the  king  who  built  it,  but  also  a 
true  astronomical  observatory  during  his 
life.  This  has  been  denied  by  some  modern 
historians.  In  Harmsworth's  History  of 
the  World  (p.  2034)  it  is  said :  "  For  the 
pyramids  are  nothing  but  tombs.  They 
have  no  astronomical  meaning  or  intention 
whatever."  And  then,  after  referring  to 
the  ideas  of  Piazzi  Smyth  and  others  as 
"  vain  imaginings,"  it  is  added :  "  There 
is  nothing  marvellous  about  these  great 
tombs,  except  their  size  and  the  accuracy 
of  their  building."  An  almost  exactly 
similar  statement  is  made  in  the  great 
Historian's  History  of  the  World,  and  in 
"  Chambers' s  Encyclopaedia." 

If  the  writers  of  these  histories  had 
read  Mr.  R.  A.  Proctor's  book,  The  Great 
Pyramid:  Observatory,  Tomb  and  Temple, 
they  would  have  known  that  this  state- 
ment is  entirely  erroneous.  The  size, 
shape,  and  angles  of  the  internal  pas- 
sages have  been  described  and  measured 
by  many  competent  students,  among  the 
most  careful  and  exact  of  whom  was 
Piazzi  Smyth,  then  Astronomer  Royal  of 
Scotland.  It  is  true  he  had  many  "  vain 
imaginings,"  but  his  measurements  were 

18 


iv]     Permanence  of  High  Intellect 

among  the  most  trustworthy.  The  "  pyra- 
mid religion/'  which  he  helped  to  estab- 
lish by  a  series  of  "  coincidences  "  in  the 
dimensions  of  various  parts  of  the  pyra- 
mid with  astronomical  dimensions,  of 
which  the  pyramid  builders  could  have 
had  no  knowledge  whatever  (such  as  the 
distance  of  the  sun,  the  precession  of  the 
equinoxes,  etc.),  was  no  doubt  a  "vain 
imagining,"  but  he  frankly  claimed  it  as 
a  divine  inspiration.  All  these  are  re- 
jected by  Mr.  Proctor,  who  clearly  explains 
the  purpose  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
internal  structure  as  only  an  experienced 
practical  astronomer  could  do.  I  will  now 
state  as  briefly  as  possible  what  are  the 
well-established  facts,  as  well  as  the  con- 
clusions at  which  Mr.  Proctor  arrives. 

The  Great  Pyramid  and  the  two  smaller 
ones  near  it,  forming  the  pyramids  of  Gizeh, 
are  placed  on  a  small  rocky  plateau  near 
the  apex  of  the  delta  of  the  Nile.  The 
largest  of  these  is  situated  so  that  its 
northern  face  rises  from  the  very  edge  of 
this  plateau.  The  reason  of  this  seems 
to  have  been  that  the  builders  wished  to 
place  it  as  nearly  as  possible  on  the  3Oth 
parallel  of  latitude.  It  is  really  about  a 
mile  and  a  third  south  of  that  parallel, 

19 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

and  it  is  shown  that  such  an  error  is  a 
small  one  for  that  early  period,  and  would 
matter  but  very  little  for  the  purpose 
required.  The  next  feature  is  that  it  is 
truly  oriented ;  that  is,  the  four  sides  run 
north  and  south,  east  and  west.  It  is 
also  a  true  square,  the  four  sides  being  of 
equal  length,  and  the  four  corners  are  on 
a  truly  level  plane. 

The  first  thing  the  builders  had  to  do 
was  to  get  a  true  meridian  line,  and  they 
could  have  done  this  in  two  ways — by 
observations  of  the  sun  or  of  the  pole 
star,  the  latter  being  much  the  more 
accurate,  though  more  laborious  and  costly. 
At  the  time  the  pyramid  was  built  the 
pole  star  was  Alpha  Draconis,  which  was 
farther  from  the  pole  than  our  pole  star 
and  revolved  around  the  true  pole  in  a 
circle  of  7°  24'  in  diameter.  In  order  to 
observe  the  direction  of  this  star  at  its 
lowest  point,  the  builders  excavated  in 
the  solid  rock  a  tunnel  about  4  feet  in 
diameter,  so  as  to  keep  this  star  visible 
each  day  at  the  lowest  point  of  its  circuit. 
This  tunnel  extended  350  feet  through  the 
rock  to  a  point  nearly  under  the  centre 
of  the  pyramid,  where,  by  a  small  vertical 
boring,  a  plumb-line  could  have  been 

20 


iv]    Permanence  of  High  Intellect 

dropped  so  as  to  obtain  the  exact  line  of 
the  meridian  on  the  surface,  and  after- 
wards on  each  successive  step  of  the 
pyramid  as  it  was  built  up.  While  the 
building  went  on  the  sloping  tunnel  was 
continued  backwards  to  its  northern  face ; 
and  a  tunnel  ascending  to  the  south  was 
formed  of  the  same  size  and  making  the 
same  angle  with  the  horizon.  This  had 
puzzled  all  previous  explorers  of  the  pyra- 
mid till  Mr.  Proctor  showed  that,  by 
stopping  up  the  downward  passage  at  the 
angle  and  filling  the  hollow  with  water 
the  pole  star  could  be  observed  by  reflexion 
and  thus  give  the  exact  direction  of  the 
meridian  on  the  upper  surface  of  the 
pyramid  with  extreme  accuracy,  as  it  was 
built  up  slowly  year  by  year. 

But  at  a  distance  of  127  feet  a  new 
feature  appears.  The  ascending  tunnel  is 
changed  into  what  is  called  the  Great 
Gallery,  which,  while  continuing  exactly 
the  same  floor  line  as  the  tunnel,  is  sud- 
denly raised  to  a  height  of  28  feet,  with 
a  width  of  7  feet  on  the  floor  and  3j  feet 
at  the  top.  Along  each  side  there  is  a 
ledge  or  seat,  20  inches  broad  and  21 
inches  high.  The  sides  do  not  slope  in- 
wards, but  are  formed  of  seven  courses  of 

21 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress    [CH. 

stone,  each  one  overlapping  the  one  below 
by  about  3  inches.  The  whole  of  this 
gallery,  or  inclined  corridor,  is  formed  of 
limestone  beautifully  smooth,  or  even 
polished.  The  length  of  this  gallery  is 
156  feet,  and  its  floor  terminated  at  the 
platform  of  the  pyramid,  upon  the  central 
line  from  east  to  west,  when  it  had  reached 
two- thirds  of  its  total  height.  This  is  on 
the  level  of  the  King's  Chamber  ;  and  it 
was  probably  only  after  the  king  was 
dead  and  his  body  embalmed  and  placed 
in  his  sarcophagus  that  the  pyramid  was 
completed,  the  openings  of  the  passages 
carefully  closed  up,  and  the  whole  exterior 
covered  with  a  smooth  casing  of  stone, 
very  small  portions  of  which  now  remain. 
There  are  two  other  features  of  this  gallery 
which  have  puzzled  the  merely  antiquarian 
explorers.  These  are  square  holes  cut  in 
the  sloping  benches  close  to  the  side  walls, 
and  about  5j  feet  apart,  there  being 
eighteen  on  each  side  exactly  opposite 
each  other.  On  each  side  of  the  gallery, 
about  half-way  up,  is  a  longitudinal  groove, 
which  would  serve  to  carry  transverse 
screens  which  could  be  slid  up  or  down, 
and  easily  wedged  in  position  in  order  to 
mark  exactly  the  central  line,  like  the 

22 


iv]    Permanence  of  High  Intellect 

cross  hairs  in  an  astronomical  telescope. 
The  holes  on  the  benches  would  serve 
to  carry  cross  seats  on  which  the  observer 
could  be  firmly  and  comfortably  seated 
while  observing  a  transit  of  sun,  star,  or 
planet. 

Being  open  to  the  south,  the  Great 
Gallery  would  give  a  magnificent  view  of 
the  southern  sky,  and  enable  observers  to 
determine  the  altitudes  and  azimuths  of 
many  stars,  and  of  the  superior  planets 
Mars,  Jupiter  and  Saturn.  The  star  Alpha 
Centauri,  which  was  at  that  period  of  the 
first  magnitude  though  now  much  dimi- 
nished in  brightness,  would,  when  crossing 
the  meridian,  have  been  situated  about  the 
centre  of  the  field  of  view  as  seen  from 
this  remarkable  feature  of  the  pyramid 
which,  Mr.  Proctor  considers,  was  the  finest 
transit-instrument  ever  constructed  for 
naked-eye  observations.  Tycho  Brahe,  with 
his  celebrated  Quadrant  at  Uranienburg,  did 
not  attain  such  a  degree  of  accuracy  as 
did  these  Eastern  astronomers  nearly  6,000 
years  ago.  One  great  superiority  of  the 
subterranean  observatory  over  any  open- 
air  observations  that  can  be  made  without 
telescopes  is,  that  by  closing  up  the  end, 
except  for  the  small  aperture  required  to 

23 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

see  the  object,  the  brighter  stars  could  be 
well  observed  in  the  daytime. 

When  we  remember  that  the  Great 
Pyramid  covers  13^  acres  of  ground, 
that  it  is  truly  square  and  on  a  truly 
horizontal  base,  that  each  side  is  accu- 
rately directed  to  a  point  of  the  compass, 
that  the  angle  of  its  slope  is  such  that  the 
area  of  each  of  the  four  triangular  faces 
is  equal  to  that  of  a  square  whose  sides 
are  equal  to  the  height  of  the  pyramid ; 
and,  further,  that  the  slope  of  the  long 
descending  tunnel  is  precisely  such  as  to 
point  accurately  to  the  pole  star  of  the 
epoch  at  the  lowest  part  of  its  circuit 
round  the  true  pole ;  and,  lastly,  that  all 
this  could  only  be  done,  as  accurately  as 
it  has  been  done,  by  the  system  of  sub- 
terranean tunnels  and  galleries  that  actually 
exists,  while  almost  all  the  details  of  their 
construction  are  shown  to  be  adapted  for 
astronomical  observations  of  the  nature 
required,  the  conclusion  becomes  irresist- 
ible that  they  were  designed  and  used  for 
such  observations,  and  that  by  no  other 
means  could  the  same  amount  of  accuracy 
have  been  attained. 

I  have  given  a  rather  full  account  of 
what  the  Pyramid  builders  really  did, 


nr]    Permanence  of  High  Intellect 

because  it  forms  a  very  important  part  of 
the  argument  I  am  developing  as  to  the 
stationary  condition  of  the  human  intellect 
during  the  historical  period. 

The  great  majority  of  educated  persons 
hold  the  opinion  that  our  wonderful  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  in  every  depart- 
ment of  art  and  science  prove  that  we  are 
really  more  intellectual  and  wiser  than  the 
men  of  past  ages — that  our  mental  faculties 
have  increased  in  power.  But  this  idea  is 
totally  unfounded.  We  are  the  inheritors 
of  the  accumulated  knowledge  of  all  the 
ages ;  and  it  is  quite  possible  and  even 
probable,  that  the  earliest  steps  taken  in 
the  accumulation  of  this  vast  mental 
treasury  required  even  more  thought  and 
a  higher  intellectual  power  than  any  of 
those  taken  in  our  own  era. 

We  can  perhaps  best  understand  this 
by  supposing  any  one  of  our  great  men 
of  science  to  have  been  born  and  educated 
in  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  civilisations. 
If  Newton  had  been  born  in  Egypt  in  the 
era  of  the  Pyramid  builders,  when  there 
were  no  such  sciences  as  mathematics, 
perhaps  even  no  decimal  notation  which 
makes  arithmetic  so  easy  to  us,  he  could 
probably  have  done  nothing  more  than 

25 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress    [CH. 

they  have  actually  done.  In  building  up 
the  sciences  each  of  the  early  steps  was 
the  work  of  a  genius.  But  now  that  there 
has  been  nearly  a  hundred  centuries  of 
discovery  and  specialisation  by  thousands 
or  even  millions  of  workers,  that  by  means 
of  writing  and  of  the  printing  press  every 
discovery  is  quickly  made  known,  and 
that  ever  larger  and  larger  numbers  devote 
their  lives  to  study,  the  rate  of  progress 
becomes  quicker  and  quicker,  till  the  total 
result  is  amazingly  great.  But  that  does 
not  prove  any  superiority  of  the  later  over 
the  earlier  discoveries.  There  is,  there- 
fore, no  proof  of  continuously  increasing 
intellectual  power. 

But  we  have  now  evidence  of  another 
kind,  which  adds  to  the  force  of  this 
argument. 

Quite  recently,  papyri  have  been  dis- 
covered which  give  us  information  as  to 
the  ideas,  the  beliefs,  and  the  aspirations 
of  a  period  even  earlier  than  that  of  the 
Great  Pyramid.  The  result  of  the  study 
of  these  and  other  records  of  early  Egypt 
is  thus  stated  by  Professor  Adolf  Erman 
in  The  Historian's  History  of  the  World: 

"  But  when  one  considers  the  ancient  resident  of 
the  valley  of  the  Nile  as  a  human  being,  with  desires 

26 


iv]    Permanence  of  High  Intellect 

emotions,  and  aspirations  almost  precisely  like  our 
own ;  a  man  struggling  to  solve  the  same  problems 
of  practical  Socialism  that  we  are  struggling  for  to-day 
— then,  and  then  only,  can  the  lessons  of  ancient 
Egyptian  history  be  brought  home  to  us  in  their  true 
meaning,  and  with  their  true  significance.  And  clearest 
of  all  will  that  significance  be,  perhaps,  if  we  con- 
stantly bear  in  mind  the  possibility  that  the  whole 
sweep  of  Egyptian  history,  during  the  three  or  four 
thousand  years  that  separated  the  Pyramid  builders 
from  the  contemporaries  of  Alexander,  was  a  time  of 
national  decay — a  dark  age,  if  you  will — in  Egyptian 
history." 

That  a  great  historian,  from  a  study 
of  the  ideas  and  social  aspirations  of  the 
earliest  known  civilisations,  should  have 
arrived  at  similar  views  as  to  the  identity 
of  their  mental  capacity  with  our  own 
as  I  have  deduced  from  their  scientific 
attainments,  must  be  held  to  be  a  very 
strong  argument  in  support  of  the  accuracy 
of  our  independent  conclusions. 


CHAPTER   V 

SPEECH    AND    WRITING    AS    PROOFS    OF 
INTELLIGENCE 

THERE  is  yet  another  proof  that  the 
faculties  of  mankind  at  a  very  early  epoch 
were  fully  equal  to  those  of  our  own  time. 
There  is  perhaps  nothing  more  difficult 
in  its  nature,  more  utterly  beyond  the 
mere  lower  animal,  than  the  faculty  of 
articulate  speech  possessed  by  every  race 
of  mankind.  We  cannot  but  believe  that 
its  acquisition  was  an  extremely  slow  pro- 
cess, and  that  it  is  rendered  possible  by 
special  cerebral  developments  giving  the 
necessary  mental  power  for  its  acquire- 
ment. 

How  long  a  process  this  would  be,  it 
is  impossible  to  say,  but  it  would  certainly 
have  had  to  reach  a  high  degree  of  perfec- 
tion before  the  equally  difficult  process  of 
inventing  a  mode  of  writing  could  have 
been  brought  to  such  perfection  as  to 
facilitate  the  further  development  of  the 
higher  faculties  through  poetry  on  the 

28 


Speech,  Writing  and  Intelligence 

one  hand  and  the  preservation  of  facts  and 
discoveries,  as  well  as  trains  of  reasoning, 
on  the  other. 

Now,  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  the 
very  important  fact  that  the  origin  and 
development  of  speech,  and  later,  of  writ- 
ing, were  apparently  almost  simultaneous, 
and  certainly  quite  independent  of  each 
other,  in  countries  not  very  distant  apart. 
This  is  shown  by  the  radical  diversity  of 
the  different  groups  of  languages  in  Europe, 
Eastern  Asia  and  North  Africa,  and  the 
equal  diversity  of  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  and 
Chinese  writing.  All  other  written  char- 
acters are  believed  to  be  derived  from  one 
or  other  of  these,  and  it  is  known  that 
the  forms  and  peculiarities  of  alphabetic 
characters  have  been  greatly  modified  by 
the  various  materials  employed,  such  as 
wood  and  stone  slabs,  clay,  or  wax ; 
papyrus,  paper  or  parchment ;  and  whether 
engraved,  impressed  or  painted,  whether 
written  with  a  reed  or  quill  pen,  or  with 
a  small  brush. 

But  if  intellectual  man  as  a  species  of 
mammal  had  developed  by  the  preserva- 
tion of  variations  of  survival-value,  we 
should  expect  to  find  such  an  important 
faculty  as  speech  to  have  originated  in 

29 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

one  centre  and  to  have  spread  rapidly 
over  the  world  with  only  slight  modifica- 
tions in  isolated  communities.  The  funda- 
mental diversities  we  find  seem  to  accord 
better  with  the  conception  that  when,  as 
a  mere  animal,  his  material  organism  had 
reached  the  required  degree  of  perfection, 
there  occurred  the  spiritual  influx  which 
alone  enabled  him  to  begin  that  course 
of  intellectual  and  moral  development, 
and  that  marvellous  power  over  the  forces 
of  Nature,  in  which  speech  and  writing, 
followed  by  printing,  have  been  such  im- 
portant factors. 

In  order  for  man  to  develop  speech  he 
must  have  possessed  a  brain  and  an  in- 
tellect far  above  that  of  the  brutes.  As 
in  the  more  fundamental  problem  of  the 
origin  of  life,  it  is  admitted  that  organisa- 
tion is  a  product  of  life  —  not  life  of 
organisation  —  so  we  must  believe  that 
speech  was  a  product  of  a  brain  and  an 
intellect  sufficient  for  their  development. 
But  such  brain  and  intellect  were  not 
necessary  for  the  lower  animals,  which 
have  reached  their  highest  lines  of  deve- 
lopment in  the  dog,  horse,  elephant,  and 
ape  without  making  any  definite  approach 
to  the  acquirement  of  such  higher  faculties. 

30 


CHAPTER  VI 

SAVAGES  NOT  MORALLY  INFERIOR  TO 
CIVILISED   RACES 

IF  the  facts  and  arguments  set  forth  in 
the  preceding  chapters  are  correct  we 
should  not  expect  to  find  any  living 
examples  of  the  unspiritualised  man,  since 
the  assumption  is  that  the  whole  race 
veceived  the  influx  which  started  them  on 
their  course  of  purely  human  development 
within  a  strictly  limited  period,  perhaps  of 
a  very  few  generations  or  even  one  genera- 
tion. The  ancestral  form — the  supposed 
missing  link — would  then  have  become 
extinct. 

If  this  were  not  so  we  should  expect  to 
find  some  isolated  groups  of  speechless 
man,  and  of  this  there  is  no  example  ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  the  very  lowest  of  exist- 
ing races  are  found  to  possess  languages 
which  are  often  of  extreme  complexity  in 
grammatical  structure  and  in  no  way  sug- 
gestive of  the  primitive  man-animal  of 
which  they  are  supposed  to  be  surviving 

31 


relics.  So  long  as  we  got  our  knowledge 
respecting  them  from  the  low-class  Euro- 
peans who  captured  them  for  slaves  or 
shot  them  down  as  wild  beasts,  we  could 
not  possibly  acquire  any  real  knowledge 
of  them  as  human  beings.  But  now  that 
we  have  more  trustworthy  accounts  of 
them  by  intelligent  travellers  or  mission- 
aries, we  find  ample  evidence  that  when 
by  kindness  and  sympathy  we  penetrate 
to  their  inner  nature,  we  discover  that 
they  possess  human  qualities  of  the  same 
kind  as  our  own.  A  few  examples  of 
what  unprejudiced  witnesses  say  of  them 
will  be  very  instructive. 

Darwin,  after  attending  a  meeting  be- 
tween Captain  Fitzroy  and  the  chief  of 
a  small  island  near  Tahiti  to  settle  a  ques- 
tion of  compensation  for  injury  to  an 
English  ship,  says  :  "I  cannot  sufficiently 
express  our  surprise  at  the  extreme  good 
sense,  the  reasoning  powers,  moderation, 
candour,  and  prompt  resolution  which 
were  displayed  on  all  sides." 

Captain  Cook  himself,  who  saw  them 
in  their  primitive  condition,  speaks  of  the 
natives  of  the  Friendly  Isles  as  being 
"liberal,  brave,  open  and  candid,  with- 
out either  suspicion  or  treachery,  cruelty, 

32 


vi]     Savages  Not  Morally  Inferior 

or  revenge  "  ;  and  a  century  later  Admiral 
Erskine  remarks  that  "  they  carry  their 
habits  of  cleanliness  and  decency  to  a 
higher  point  than  the  most  civilised 
nations  "  ;  while  all  the  Polynesian  races 
are  kind  and  attentive  to  the  sick  and 
aged,  and  unlimited  hospitality  is  every- 
where practised  by  them. 

Even  the  Australian  aborigines,  who 
are  often  said  to  be  one  of  the  lowest  of 
human  races,  are  found  to  possess  many 
good  qualities  by  those  who  know  them 
best.  Mr.  Curr,  who  was  for  forty  years 
protector  of  the  aborigines  in  Victoria, 
says : 

"  Socially,  the  black  is  polite,  gay,  fond  of  laughter, 
and  has  much  bonhomie  in  his  composition.  .  .  . 
The  natives  are  very  strict  in  obeying  their  laws  and 
customs,  even  under  great  temptation.  The  horror 
of  marrying  a  woman  within  the  prohibited  degrees 
of  relationship,  the  extreme  grief  they  manifest  at 
the  death  of  children  or  relatives,  and  sometimes  even 
for  white  men,  as  illustrated  by  the  native  boy  who 
was  the  sole  companion  of  the  unfortunate  Kennedy 
when  he  was  murdered,  are  sufficient  to  indicate  that 
they  possess  affections  and  a  sense  of  right  and  wrong 
not  very  different  from  our  own." 

The  fact  that  the  physical  charac- 
teristics of  the  Australians  are  substan- 
tially those  of  the  Caucasian  race  in  its 

D  33 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

lowest  types  has  led  me  to  conclude  that 
these  interesting  people  may  have  been 
descended  from  much  more  civilised  re- 
mote ancestors,  and  are  thus  an  example 
of  degradation  rather  than  of  survival.* 
Many  other  illustrations  of  both  intelli- 
gence and  morality  are  met  with  among 
savage  races  in  all  parts  of  the  world  ;  and 
these,  taken  as  a  whole,  show  a  substantial 
identity  of  human  character,  both  moral 
and  emotional,  with  no  marked  superiority 
in  any  race  or  country.  In  intellect,  where 
the  greatest  advance  is  supposed  to  have 
occurred,  this  may  be  wholly  due  to  the 
cumulative  effect  of  successive  acquisi- 
tions of  knowledge  handed  down  from  age 
to  age.  Euclid  and  Archimedes  were  prob- 
ably the  equals  of  any  of  our  greatest 
mathematicians  of  to-day,  while  the  archi- 
tecture of  Greece,  of  India,  and  of  Central 
America  is  little  inferior  to  mediaeval 
Gothic.  But  none  of  these,  though  so  dif- 
ferent in  style,  can  be  said  to  prove  any 
real  advance  in  intellectual  power  from 
that  of  the  builders  of  the  much  more 

•See  my  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  Chap.  V.,  "The 
Australian  Aborigines,"  where  this  view  was  first  set  forth. 
(Stanford,  1893.)  For  cases  of  morality  among  savages  see  my 
Natural  Selection  and  Tropical  Nature,  pp.  199-201. 

34 


vi]     Savages  Not  Morally  Inferior 

ancient  temples  and  pyramids  of  Egypt. 
This  latter  country,  too,  in  its  high  material 
civilisation  and  its  remarkable  religious 
system,  shows  itself  the  equal  of  any  that 
has  succeeded  it. 


CHAPTER   VII 

A  SELECTIVE  AGENCY  NEEDED  TO   IMPROVE 
CHARACTER 

THE  general  result  of  the  facts  and  argu- 
ments now  set  forth  in  the  merest  outline 
leads  us  to  conclude  that  there  has  been 
no  definite  advance  of  morality  from  age 
to  age,  and  that  even  the  lowest  races,  at 
each  period,  possessed  the  same  intellec- 
tual and  moral  nature  as  the  higher.  The 
manifestations  of  this  essentially  human 
nature  in  habits  and  conduct  were  often 
very  diverse,  in  accordance  with  diversi- 
ties of  the  social  and  moral  environment. 
This  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  now 
well-established  doctrine  that  the  essential 
character  of  man,  intellectual,  emotional, 
and  moral,  is  inherent  in  him  from  birth ; 
that  it  is  subject  to  great  variation  from 
individual  to  individual ;  and  that  its 
manifestations  in  conduct  can  be  modified 
in  a  very  high  degree  by  the  influence  of 
public  opinion  and  systematic  teaching. 
These  latter  changes,  however,  are  not 

36 


Selective  Agency  and  Character 

hereditary,  and  it  follows  that  no  definite 
advance  in  morals  can  occur  in  any  race 
unless  there  is  some  selective  or  segregative 
agency  at  work. 

As  there  is  a  great  amount  of  mis- 
conception on  this  subject  some  explana- 
tion may  be  advisable.  Many  well-edu- 
cated and  intelligent  persons  seem  to  think 
that  whatever  characters  or  faculties  are 
hereditary  are  also  necessarily  cumulative. 
They  hear  that  mental  as  well  as  physical 
characteristics  are  hereditary ;  their  own  ob- 
servation tells  them  that  there  are  musical 
families  as  well  as  tall  families.  They 
hear  that  the  late  Sir  Francis  Galton  wrote 
a  book  on  Hereditary  Genius,  and  perhaps 
they  have  read  it ;  but  they  do  not  ob- 
serve that  neither  he  nor  anyone  else  has 
proved  that  genius  of  any  kind  is  cumulative, 
that  is  that  a  man  or  woman  of  genius  will 
have,  on  the  average,  some  one  or  more 
children  with  a  greater  amount  of  that 
special  power  or  faculty  than  their  own. 
The  very  contrary  of  this  is  really  the 
case.  The  more  a  person's  talent  or  mental 
power  is  above  the  average  the  less  chance 
there  is  that  any  of  his  or  her  children 
will  have  still  more  of  that  power  than  he 
has.  A  really  great  poet,  or  painter,  or 
37 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

musician,  appears  suddenly  in  a  family 
of  mediocre  ability  or  of  no  ability  at  all 
in  that  special  direction.  A  few  examples 
may  be  instructive. 

Sir  William  Herschell  was  the  son  of  a 
German  musician,  and  was  himself  a 
musician  by  profession ;  but  he  became 
an  astronomical  genius,  one  of  the  greatest 
of  his  age.  His  son,  Sir  John  Herschell, 
was  a  very  clever  man,  with  advantages 
of  education  and  position.  He  followed 
his  father  as  an  astronomer,  and  was  a 
great  mathematician,  but  is  never  con- 
sidered to  be  equal  to  his  father.  Darwin's 
most  eminent  son  was  a  mathematician, 
not  a  naturalist. 

The  reason  of  this  is  that  heredity 
follows  the  law  of  "  recession  to  medio- 
crity." This  is,  that  all  groups  of  living 
things  vary  around  an  average  or  mean  as 
regards  each  of  their  characters ;  and 
those  near  the  average  are  always  numer- 
ous, while  as  we  approach  the  extremes 
in  either  direction  the  numbers  become 
less  and  less.  Families  follow  the  same 
law.  If  you  take  a  family  for  three  or  four 
generations,  including  perhaps  some  hun- 
dreds of  persons,  some  will  be  short,  some 
tall ;  but  the  majority  will  be  near  the 
38 


vn]    Selective  Agency  and  Character 

mean,  and  the  tallest  of  all  will  be  less 
likely  to  have  taller  descendants  than  them- 
selves than  those  nearer  the  average.  But 
the  children  of  the  tallest,  though  generally 
shorter  than  their  parents,  will  still  tend 
to  be  above  the  average  height. 

When  a  character  is  so  useful  to  its 
possessor  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
as  to  be  of  what  is  termed  "  survival 
value,"  then  those  that  vary  most  above 
the  average  will  be  preserved  or  selected 
generation  after  generation  as  long  as  the 
increase  is  useful. 

It  is  because  the  higher  intellectual  or 
moral  powers  are  so  rarely  of  life-preserv- 
ing value,  and  are  not  unfrequently  the 
reverse,  that  they  are  not  cumulative, 
though  they  are  hereditary. 

With  this  explanation  we  will  now  pro- 
ceed to  examine  somewhat  closely  our 
moral  position  as  a  nation;  what  is  the 
nature  of  our  social  environment ;  how  it 
came  to  be  what  it  is,  and  what  lessons  we 
may  learn  from  it. 


39 


CHAPTER   VIII 

ENVIRONMENT    DURING    THE    NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 

DURING  the  eighteenth  century  our  mate- 
rial civilisation,  which  had  long  been 
almost  stationary,  began  to  advance  with 
the  growth  of  the  physical  sciences,  but  at 
first  with  extreme  slowness.  The  earliest 
steps  were  made  by  the  application  of 
machinery  to  some  of  the  domestic  arts. 
Some  refinements  were  made  in  the  man- 
ners and  customs  of  our  daily  life;  but 
there  were  few,  if  any,  indications  of  per- 
manent or  widespread  change,  either  for 
better  or  worse,  in  our  intellectual  or 
moral  nature. 

The  nineteenth  century,  however,  saw 
the  initiation  of  a  great  change  in  the 
economic  environment  due  to  the  rapid 
invention  of  labour-saving  machinery; 
which,  with  the  equally  rapid  application 
of  steam  power,  led  to  an  increase  of 
wealth  production  such  as  had  never  been 
known  on  the  earth  before.  During  the 
40 


Nineteenth-Century  Environment 

same  period  new  modes  of  locomotion  were 
brought  into  daily  use,  the  facilities  for 
inter-communication  were  increased  a  hun- 
dred-fold, scientific  discoveries  opened  up 
to  us  new  and  unthought-of  mysteries  of 
the  universe,  and  the  whole  earth  was 
ransacked  for  its  treasures,  both  vegetable 
and  mineral,  to  an  extent  that  surpassed 
all  that  had  been  accomplished  since  the 
dawn  of  civilisation. 

But  this  rapid  growth  of  wealth,  and 
increase  of  our  power  over  Nature,  put 
too  great  a  strain  upon  our  crude  civilisa- 
tion and  our  superficial  Christianity,  and 
it  was  accompanied  by  various  forms  of 
social  immorality,  almost  as  amazing  and 
unprecedented.  Some  of  these  may  be 
here  briefly  referred  to. 

Our  vast  textile  factory  system  may 
be  said  to  have  commenced  with  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  the  profits  were 
at  first  so  large  and  so  dependent  on 
the  supply  of  labour  that  the  mill-owners 
hired  children  from  the  workhouses  of 
the  great  cities  by  hundreds  and  even 
thousands.  These  children,  from  the  age 
of  five  or  six  upwards,  were  taken  as 
apprentices  for  seven  years,  and  they 
really  became  the  slaves  of  the  manufac- 

41 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

turers,  whose  managers  made  them  work 
from  6  a.m.  to  7  p.m.,  or  sometimes 
longer  ;  and,  in  order  to  keep  them  awake 
in  the  close  atmosphere  of  the  factories 
it  was  found  necessary  to  whip  them  at 
frequent  intervals.  It  was  not  till  1819 
that  the  age  of  children  employed  in  fac- 
tories was  raised  to  nine  years,  while  in 
1825  the  working  hours  were  limited  to 
seventy-two  a  week ! 

From  that  time  onward,  during  the 
whole  of  the  nineteenth  century,  there 
was  a  continued  succession  of  "  Factory 
Acts,"  each  aiming  at  abolishing  or  ame- 
liorating the  worst  results  of  child  labour 
— its  inhumanity,  its  cruelty,  and  its  im- 
morality. These  legislative  efforts  were 
always  opposed  by  the  employers,  who 
usually  succeeded  in  so  mutilating  them 
in  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons 
as  to  render  them  almost  useless.  Mrs. 
E.  B.  Browning's  noble  verses,  The  Cry 
of  the  Children,  show  that  after  nearly 
fifty  years  of  struggle  the  condition  of 
the  child-workers  was  still,  in  a  high 
degree,  cruel,  degrading,  and  therefore 
immoral ;  while  that  of  the  half-timers 
who  succeeded  them  was  almost  as  in- 
jurious. 

42 


Nineteenth-Century  Environment 

As  the  century  wore  on,  other  evils  of 
a  similar  nature  were  gradually  brought  to 
light.  Children  and  women  were  found  to 
be  working  underground  in  coal  mines, 
under  equally  vile  conditions  as  regards 
health  and  morality ;  and  an  enormous 
loss  of  life  was  caused  by  inadequate  ven- 
tilation, insecure  roof -propping,  imperfect 
winding  machinery,  and  other  causes,  all 
due  to  want  of  proper  precautions  by  the 
owners  of  the  mines.  As  a  matter  of  simple 
justice,  such  owners  should  be  held  respon- 
sible to  the  injured  person  not  only  to  the 
full  extent  of  his  wages  and  for  medical 
attendance,  but  should  also  pay  a  liberal 
compensation  for  the  pain  suffered,  and  for 
the  extra  labour,  expense  and  anxiety  to  his 
family.  But  all  such  things  are  ignored  in 
the  case  of  poor  workers,  so  that  even  the 
money  compensation  is  reduced  to  the 
smallest  amount  possible. 

It  is  one  of  the  great  defects  of  our 
law  that  deaths  due  to  preventable  causes 
in  any  profit  -  making  business  are  not 
criminal  offences.  Till  they  are  made  so, 
it  will  be  impossible  to  save  the  hundreds, 
or  even  thousands,  of  lives  now  lost  owing 
to  neglect  of  proper  precautions  in  all 
kinds  of  dangerous  or  unhealthy  trades. 
43 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

However  costly  such  precautions  may  be, 
expense  should  not  be  considered  when 
human  life  is  risked  ;  and  the  present  state 
of  the  law  is  therefore  immoral. 

Notwithstanding  Acts  of  Parliament 
and  numerous  Inspectors  (whose  salaries 
should  be  paid  by  the  mine  owners),  ex- 
plosions and  other  accidents  underground 
continue  to  increase,  the  year  1910  being 
a  record  year,  with  its  1,775  deaths ;  and 
even  the  number  in  proportion  to  the 
workers  employed  is  the  highest  for  the 
last  twenty  years. 

Yet  no  one  is  punished,  or  even  held 
responsible  for  these  deaths.  Surely,  this 
shows  a  deplorable  absence  of  moral  feeling, 
both  in  the  general  public  and  in  Parlia- 
ment. The  responsibility  of  Parliament  is 
really  criminal,  since  it  always  allows  its 
legislation  to  be  made  ineffective  by  the 
fear  of  diminishing  the  employers'  profits, 
thus  deliberately  placing  money-making 
above  human  life  and  human  well-being. 

In  the  case  of  mines  and  quarries, 
Parliament  is  especially  responsible,  because 
the  possession  of  the  mineral  wealth  of  our 
country  by  private  individuals  is  itself  a 
gross  usurpation  of  public  rights,  and  should 
have  been  long  ago  declared  illegal.  What- 
44 


Nineteenth-Century  Environment 

ever  arguments — and  they  are  very  strong 
— show  us  that  the  land  itself  should 
not  be  private  property,  are  ten  times 
stronger  in  the  case  of  the  minerals  within 
its  bowels.  The  value  of  land  increases 
with  its  proper  use,  but  in  the  case  of 
minerals,  the  value  is  absolutely  destroyed. 
Surely,  it  is  a  crime  against  posterity  to 
allow  the  strictly  limited  mineral  wealth  of 
our  country  to  be  made  private  property, 
and  very  largely  sold  to  foreigners,  solely 
to  increase  the  wealth  of  individuals  and 
to  the  absolute  impoverishment  of  ourselves 
and  our  children.* 

I  will  here  add  one  other  argument 
which  goes  to  the  root  of  the  matter  by 
showing  that  the  alleged  owners  of  mine- 
rals have  not  even  a  legal  title  to  them. 
It  is,  I  believe,  a  maxim  of  law  that  public 
rights  cannot  be  lost  by  disuse.  Landed 
estates  were,  in  our  country,  created  by 
the  Norman  Conqueror  to  be  held  subject 
to  the  performance  of  feudal  duties.  Deep- 
seated  minerals  were  then  not  known  to 
exist,  and  were  not  (I  believe)  specifically 
included  in  the  original  grants.  Except, 

*  I  pointed  this  out  forty  years  ago  in  an  article  entitled 
Coal  a  National  Trust,  which  I  republished  twelve  years  ago 
in  my  Studies,  Scientific  and  Social  (Vol.  II.,  Chap.  VIII.). 

45 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

therefore,  where  they  have  since  been  made 
private  property  by  Act  of  Parliament, 
they  still  remain  public  property.  I  sub- 
mit, therefore,  that  they  may  be  both 
legally  and  equitably  resumed  by  the 
Government  as  public  property,  and  worked 
for  the  good  of  the  public  and  of  posterity. 
Compensation  to  the  supposed  present 
owners  would  be  a  matter  of  favour,  not 
of  right. 


46 


CHAPTER   IX 

INSANITARY    DWELLINGS    AND    LIFE- 
DESTROYING  TRADES 

THE  enormous  difference  between  town  and 
country  dwellers  as  regards  duration  of 
life  and  the  prevalence  of  zymotic  diseases 
has  been  known  statistically  since  the  era 
of  registration,  and  a  body  of  Health 
Officers  have  been  set  up  to  report  upon 
the  worst  cases.  The  local  authorities  have 
power  to  compel  the  owners  of  unhealthy 
dwellings  to  put  them  into  a  sanitary  con- 
dition, or  even  order  them  to  be  entirely 
rebuilt.  But  as  many  of  the  members  of 
Corporations  and  other  Local  Boards  are 
often  themselves  owners  of  such  property, 
or  have  intimate  friends  who  are  so,  very 
little  has  been  done  to  remedy  the  evil. 
Again  and  again,  in  all  parts  of  the  country, 
the  Health  Officers  have  duly  reported,  but 
their  reports  have  been  ignored.  In  some 
cases  where  the  Health  Officer  has  been 
too  persistent,  he  has  been  asked  to  resign 

47 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

or  has  been  discharged.  A  few  general 
facts  may  be  here  given. 

By  the  last  complete  Census  returns 
(1901),  there  are  in  England  and  Wales 
7,036,868  tenements,  and  of  these  3,286,526, 
or  nearly  half,  have  from  one  to  four  rooms 
only.  In  London,  out  of  a  total  of  1,019,646 
tenements,  672,030,  or  considerably  more 
than  half,  have  from  one  to  four  rooms ; 
while  there  are  about  150,000  tenements 
of  only  one  room,  in  which  are  living  313,298 
persons,  or  about  two  and  a  quarter  persons 
in  each  room  on  the  average.  There  are, 
however,  about  20,000  persons  living  five 
in  a  room,  and  20,000  more  who  have 
six,  seven,  or  eight  in  a  room.  As  most 
of  these  one-roomed  tenements  are  either 
the  cellars  or  attics  of  houses  in  the  most 
crowded  parts  of  large  towns,  where  there 
is  impure  air,  little  light,  and  scanty  water 
supply,  the  condition  of  those  who  dwell 
in  them  may  be  imagined — or  rather  can- 
not be  imagined,  except  by  those  who 
have  explored  them. 

Equally  inhuman,  immoral,  and  even 
criminal,  is  the  neglect  of  all  adequate 
measures  to  check  the  loss  of  infant  life 
through  the  overwork,  poverty,  or  starva- 
tion of  the  mother,  together  with  over- 
48 


ix]  Insanitary  Dwellings 

crowded  and  insanitary  dwellings.  In 
the  mad  race  for  wealth  by  capitalists  and 
employers  most  of  our  towns  and  cities 
have  been  allowed  to  develop  into  verit- 
able death-traps  for  the  poor.  This  has 
been  known  for  the  greater  part  of  a 
century,  yet  nothing  really  effective  has 
been  done,  notwithstanding  abundant 
health  legislation — again  made  useless  by 
the  dread  of  diminishing  the  excessive 
profits  of  manufacturers  and  slum-owners. 
One  of  the  Labour  newspapers  calls  our 
attention  to  the  following  facts  for  1911 
as  to  Infant  mortality  per  1,000  born : 

PER    1,000 

Deptford,  East  Ward  (poor)  197 
Deptford,  West  Ward  (rich)  68 
Bournville  Garden  Village  .  65 
St.  Mary's  Ward,  Birming- 
ham   ....  331 

Such  facts  exist  all  over  the  kingdom. 
They  have  been  talked  about  and  deplored 
for  the  last  half-century  at  least.  Who 
has  murdered  the  100,000  children  who 
die  annually  before  they  are  one  year 
old  ?  Who  has  robbed  the  millions  that 
just  survive  of  all  that  makes  childhood 

E  49 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

happy — pure  food,  fresh  air,  play,  rest, 
sleep,  and  proper  nurture  and  teaching  ? 
Again  we  must  answer,  our  Parliament, 
which  occupies  itself  with  anything  rather 
than  the  immediate  saving  of  human  life 
and  abolishing  widespread  human  misery, 
the  whole  of  which  is  remediable.  And 
all  for  fear  of  offending  the  rich  and 
powerful  by  some  diminution  of  their 
ever-increasing  accumulations  of  wealth. 
No  thinking  man  or  woman  can  believe 
that  this  state  of  things  is  absolutely 
irremediable ;  and  the  persistent  acquies- 
cence in  it  while  loudly  boasting  of  our 
civilisation,  of  our  science,  of  our  national 
prosperity,  and  of  our  Christianity,  is  the 
proof  of  a  hypocritical  lack  of  national 
morality  that  has  never  been  surpassed 
in  any  former  age. 

A  new  set  of  evils  has  grown  up 
in  the  various  so  -  called  "  unhealthy 
trades "  —  the  lead  glaze  in  the  china 
manufacture,  the  steel  dust  in  cutlery 
work,  and  the  endless  variety  of  poisonous 
liquids  and  vapours  in  the  numerous 
chemical  works  or  processes,  by  which  so 
many  fortunes  have  been  made.  These, 
together,  are  the  cause  of  a  large  direct 
loss  of  life,  and  a  much  larger  amount  of 
5° 


ix]  Insanitary  Dwellings 

permanent  injury,  together  with  a  terrible 
reduction  in  the  duration  of  life  of  all 
the  workers  in  such  trades.  Yet  in  one 
case  only — that  of  phosphorus  matches 
— has  any  such  injurious  process  of  manu- 
facture been  put  an  end  to.  Wealth  has 
been  deliberately  preferred  to  human  life 
and  happiness.* 

One  of  the  most  deadly  of  trades 
seems  to  have  remained  unnoticed  till 
it  has  been  brought  to  light  by  the 
new  Labour  paper,  The  Daily  Citizen, 
in  a  series  of  articles  by  Mr.  Keighley 
Snowden,  entitled  The  Broken  Women. 
Never  was  a  title  better  deserved,  since 
large  numbers  of  girls  and  young  women 
are  employed  at  Lye  and  Cradley  Heath, 
in  what  is  commonly  named  the  "  Hollow 
Ware "  works.  This  is  the  tinning,  or 
galvanising,  as  it  is  usually  termed,  of 
buckets  and  other  domestic  utensils,  in 
which  lead  is  used ;  and  it  produces  one 
of  the  most  virulent  forms  of  lead-poison- 
ing. The  symptoms  are,  among  other 
more  painful  ones,  the  loss  of  hair  and 
the  loosening  and  ultimate  loss  of  teeth, 
culminating  either  in  chronic  illness  or 

*  An  account  of  some  deadly  trades  is  given  in  Mr.  R.  H, 
Sherard's  book,  The  White  Slaves  of  England. 

5' 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

death,  sometimes  in  a  few  months  or 
years.  Five  years  ago  there  was  a 
Home  Office  inquiry,  which,  after  full 
examination,  reported  that  the  process 
used  was  dangerous  to  life,  that  no  pre- 
cautions could  render  it  harmless,  and 
that  it  should  be  totally  discontinued. 

An  order  was  then  issued  by  the 
Home  Office  that  after  a  time-limit  (two 
years)  the  process  should  be  no  longer 
used  ;  but  that  order  has  not  been  obeyed 
(except  by  a  few  employers)  to  this  day. 
The  deadly  nature  of  this  work  was 
accompanied  by  miserably  low  wages,  as 
shown  by  the  fact  that  the  women  workers 
have  at  length  struck  to  obtain  a  minimum 
of  los.  a  week  !  Helped  by  some  humane 
friends,  they  have  at  length  succeeded 
in  obtaining  this  miserable  wage,  and 
for  the  present  are  in  a  state  of  com- 
parative happiness !  How  long  it  will  be 
before  the  Government  abolishes  this 
deadly  process  we  cannot  tell.  The  fol- 
lowing is  a  brief  statement  of  what  these 
poor  women  have  to  suffer,  extracted 
from  The  Daily  Citizen  of  November  20th, 
1912  : — 

"  They  had,  without  power  to  resist  them,  suffered 
repeated  and  ruthless  reductions  of  wages.     They 
5* 


ix]  Insanitary  Dwellings 

had  seen  their  industry  brought  down  by  reckless 
competition,  and  the  manufacture  of  shoddy  goods, 
to  the  point  at  which  men  could  no  longer  earn  enough 
to  support  their  families.  They  had  seen  their  wives 
and  daughters  and  boys  forced  by  want  at  home  into 
workshops,  where,  as  official  inquiry  has  shown, 
health  was  sucked  out  of  their  bodies  as  though  they 
had  been  the  victims  of  vampires.  They  had  seen  the 
introduction  and  growth  of  the  sub-contracting '  stint ' 
system,  under  which  boyhood  and  girlhood  and 
motherhood  were  driven  as  though  they  had  been 
slaves  under  the  lash,  and  their  earnings  cut  down 
to  a  penny  an  hour.  Meanwhile,  they  lived  in  the 
hovels  and  holes  of  a  place  which  can  only  be  fitly 
described  as  one  of  the  dirtiest  ashpits  of  a  civilisation 
reckless  of  dirt  where  profit  is  a  question." 

Those  who  want  to  know  what  horrors 
can  exist  to-day  in  England  should  read 
Mr.  Snowden's  series  of  articles  on  the 
subject.  They  are  restrained  in  language, 
and  state  the  bare  facts  from  careful 
personal  observation.  That  such  things 
should  still  exist  in  a  country  claiming 
to  be  civilised  would  be  incredible,  were 
there  not  so  many  others  of  a  like  nature 
and  almost  as  bad. 

In  an  almost  exhaustive  volume  on 
Diseases  of  Occupation  by  Sir  Thomas 
Oliver,  M.D.  (1908),  there  is  only  a  short 
reference  to  the  hollowware  trade  of  the 
"black  country"  near  Birmingham.  But 
53 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

the  tin  plate  industry  of  South  Wales  is 
more  fully  described,  with  the  same  pitiable 
condition  of  the  women  workers  and  the 
same  terrible  results  to  health  and  life. 
Yet  nothing  whatever  seems  to  be  done 
by  the  manufacturers;  and  though  two 
Home  Office  Inspectors  have  fully  reported 
on  its  horrors  from  1888  onwards,  no  notice 
appears  to  have  been  taken  of  them,  nor 
has  there  been  any  Government  interfer- 
ence with  conditions  of  labour  which  are 
a  disgrace  to  civilisation. 


CHAPTER   X 

ADULTERATION,    BRIBERY,   AND   GAMBLING 

AFTER  the  terrible  national  crime  of 
deadly  employments  it  is  almost  an  anti- 
climax to  enumerate  the  vast  mass  of 
dishonesty  and  falsehood  that  pervades 
our  commercial  system  in  every  depart- 
ment. Almost  every  fabric,  whether  of 
cotton,  linen,  wool,  or  silk,  is  so  widely 
and  ingeniously  adulterated  by  the  inter- 
mixture of  cheaper  materials  that  the  pure 
article  as  supplied  to  our  grandparents 
is  hardly  to  be  obtained.  Of  this  one 
example  only  must  serve.  Calicoes  have 
been  successively  dressed  with  such  sub- 
stances as  paste  and  tallow ;  then  with 
the  still  cheaper  china  clay  and  size ;  and 
in  some  cases  from  50  to  90  per  cent,  of 
these  latter  materials  have  been  sold  as 
calico  for  exportation  to  countries  in- 
habited by  what  we  term  savages.  These 
people  only  found  out  the  deception  when 
the  need  for  washing  or  exposure  to  tropical 
rains  reduced  the  material  to  a  flimsy  and 

55 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

worthless  rag,  as  I  have  myself  witnessed 
in  some  parts  of  the  Malay  Archipelago.* 

Even  worse  is  the  adulteration  of 
almost  every  kind  of  prepared  food — 
including  the  showy  sweetmeats  which 
tempt  our  children — with  various  che- 
micals, which  are  often  injurious  to 
health,  and  sometimes  fatal ;  while  even 
the  drugs  we  take  in  the  endeavour  to 
cure  our  various  ailments  are  frequently 
so  treated  as  to  be  useless  or  even  hurt- 
ful. Along  with  this  form  of  dishonesty 
is  what  may  be  termed  simple  cheating 
in  the  description  of  goods  sold,  especially 
as  to  quantity.  Threads  and  fabrics  are 
generally  shorter  or  narrower  than  stated, 
giving  a  larger  profit  when  sold  in  enor- 
mous quantities  in  our  great  retail  shops. 

Then,  again,  there  is  a  widespread 
system  of  bribery  of  servants  or  other 
employees  in  order  to  obtain  more  cus- 
tomers or  to  secure  contracts ;  and  though 
these  are  all  criminal  offences,  and  a  great 
host  of  inspectors  and  official  analysts 
are  employed  to  discover  and  convict  the 

*  These  facts  are  given  in  the  Ninth  Edition  of  the 
"  Encyclopaedia  Britannica."  In  recent  editions  the 
article  Adulteration  is  limited  to  food  and  drug3.  In 
"  Chambers'  Encyclopaedia,"  cotton,  linen  and  woollens 
are  included  among  adulterated  fabrics. 


x]    Adulteration,  Bribery,  Gambling 

offenders,  yet  so  few  people  are  willing  to 
take  the  trouble  and  lose  the  time  and 
money  involved  in  putting  the  law  into 
motion,  that  a  very  large  percentage  of 
these  offences  go  undiscovered  and  un- 
punished. 

Yet  another  and  more  serious  form  of 
plunder  of  the  public  is  carried  on  by 
means  of  Joint  Stock  Companies,  of  which 
there  are  now  more  than  50,000  in  England 
and  Wales.  In  the  year  1911  the  number 
of  new  companies  was  5,959,  while  4,353 
ceased  to  exist,  giving  an  increase  of  1,606 
in  the  year.  The  Limited  Liability  Act 
was  passed  in  1855,  in  order  that  the  public 
might  invest  their  savings  in  companies, 
and  thus  share  in  the  profits  of  our  in- 
dustry and  commerce.  It  was  supposed 
to  be  quite  proper  that  anyone  should 
benefit  by  the  enterprise  and  industry  of 
others;  but  to  do  so  is  essentially  im- 
moral, and  has  resulted  in  a  vast  system 
of  swindling  and  terrible  losses  to  the  inno- 
cent investors.  The  promoters,  directors, 
secretaries  and  bankers  of  these  companies 
always  gain ;  those  that  take  up  the  shares 
often  lose;  and  the  amount  of  misery  and 
absolute  ruin  of  those  who  fondly  hoped  to 
add  to  their  scanty  incomes,  and  have  been 
57 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

deluded  by  the  names  of  well-known  public 
men  among  the  directors,  is  incalculable. 

Our  Stock  Exchanges,  too,  are  used 
largely  for  pure  gambling  which,  owing  to 
its  vast  extent  and  being  carried  on  under 
business  forms,  is  perhaps  more  ruinous 
than  any  other.  But  this  form  of  gambling 
goes  on  unchecked,  and  is  generally  accepted 
as  quite  honest  business.  Yet  ordinary  bet- 
ting on  races  and  other  forms  of  direct 
gambling  are  hypocritically  condemned  as 
immoral  and  criminal. 

The  vast  fabric  of  our  Foreign  Trade 
in  food,  or  the  raw  materials  of  our  manu- 
factures, is  also  used  to  support  perhaps 
the  greatest  system  of  gambling  the  world 
has  ever  seen.  The  fluctuating  prices  of 
corn  or  cotton,  of  coal  or  mineral  oil,  of 
iron  and  other  metals,  in  the  great  mar- 
kets of  the  world,  are  used  in  two  ways 
by  a  large  community  of  gamblers,  who 
not  only  do  not  require  the  goods  they 
buy,  but  who  never  see  nor  possess  them. 
The  ordinary  speculator  who  buys  when 
prices  are  low,  to  sell  again  at  a  profit, 
without  himself  being  able  to  influence 
the  rise  or  fall  of  price,  is  a  pure  gambler 
who  thinks  he  can  foresee  the  changes 
of  the  market  price  in  the  immediate 

58 


x]  Adulteration,  Bribery,  Gambling 

future.  But  the  great  capitalists  who, 
either  singly  or  by  means  of  what  are 
called  rings  or  combines,  purchase  such 
vast  quantities  of  the  special  product  as 
to  create  a  scarcity  in  the  market,  lead- 
ing to  a  large  rise  of  price,  are  ingenious 
robbers  rather  than  gamblers,  because, 
by  clever  dealings  with  such  a  monopoly, 
often  aided  by  false  rumours  widely  cir- 
culated in  newspapers  owned  or  bribed 
by  them,  they  are  able  to  make  enormous 
profits  at  the  expense  of  those  who  are 
obliged  to  purchase  for  actual  business 
purposes  or  for  daily  use.  This  is  one 
of  the  methods  by  which  the  great  mil- 
lionaires and  multi-millionaires  of  the 
world  accumulate  their  wealth,  every 
penny  of  which  is  at  the  cost  of  the 
consuming  public. 

This  is  certainly  as  immoral  as  any 
of  the  petty  forms  of  swindling  with 
marked  cards,  loaded  dice,  or  the  wilful 
losing  of  a  race ;  yet  the  possessors  of 
such  wealth  are  usually  held  to  be  clever 
business  men,  whose  morality  is  not  ques- 
tioned. 

All  these  inconsistencies  as  regards  the 
moral  status  of  various  kinds  of  gambling 
or  dishonest  speculation  arise  from  our 
59 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

inveterate  habit  of  dealing  with  limited 
cases,  each  judged  on  its  supposed  merits 
as  to  consequences,  instead  of  looking  to 
fundamental  principles.  Why  is  gambling 
immoral  ?  Not  because  it  is  a  game  of 
chance,  entered  into  for  mere  amusement, 
even  when  played  for  small  money  stakes 
which  are  of  no  importance  to  any  of  the 
players.  The  fundamental  wrong  arises 
whenever  it  is  used  for  obtaining  wealth 
or  any  part  of  the  player's  income  ;  and 
the  reason  is,  that  whatever  one  wins, 
someone  else  loses ;  while  its  evil  nature, 
socially,  depends  upon  the  fact  that 
whoever  acquires  wealth  by  such  means 
contributes  nothing  useful  to  the  social 
organism  of  which  he  forms  a  part.  If  it 
were  taught  to  every  child,  and  in  every 
school  and  college,  that  it  is  morally 
wrong  for  anyone  to  live  upon  the 
combined  labour  of  his  fellow-men  with- 
out contributing  an  approximately  equal 
amount  of  useful  labour,  whether  physical 
or  mental,  in  return,  all  kinds  of  gambling, 
as  well  as  many  other  kinds  of  useless 
occupation,  would  be  seen  to  be  of  the 
same  nature  as  direct  dishonesty  or  fraud, 
and,  therefore,  would  soon  come  to  be 
considered  disgraceful  as  well  as  immoral. 
60 


x]  Adulteration,  Bribery,  Gambling 

We  see,  then,  that  the  whole  commercial 
fabric  of  our  country — our  immense  mills 
and  factories,  our  vast  exports  and  im- 
ports, our  home  trade,  wholesale  and 
retail,  and  innumerable  transactions  in 
our  Stock  Exchanges — is  permeated  with 
various  forms  of  dishonesty,  gambling, 
and  direct  robbery  of  individuals  or  of 
the  public.  No  class  is  wholly  free  from 
it,  and  it  increases  in  volume  from  decade 
to  decade,  just  as  our  boasted  commerce 
and  accumulated  wealth  increases. 

I  have  here  called  attention  to  these 
various  forms  of  immoral  practices  be- 
cause they  are  so  often  ignored.  Yet 
they  are  all  officially  admitted  by  the 
enormous  mass  of  the  various  Royal 
Commissions,  Parliamentary  and  other 
Reports,  as  well  as  by  the  hundreds  of 
"  Acts "  by  which  successive  Parliaments 
have  endeavoured  to  deal  with  them,  but 
which  have,  one  and  all,  proved  to  be 
either  wholly  or  partially  ineffective.  The 
reason  of  this  failure  is  that  in  every  case 
symptoms  and  isolated  results  only  have 
been  considered,  while  the  underlying 
causes  of  the  whole  vast  mass  of  social 
corruption  have  never  been  sought  for,  or, 
ii  known,  have  never  influenced  legislation. 

61 


CHAPTER   XI 

OUR    ADMINISTRATION     OF     "  JUSTICE  "     IS 
IMMORAL 

WHEN  we  read  about  the  Turkish  or  other 
Eastern  law  courts,  in  which  direct  bribery 
of  every  official  up  to  the  judge  himself 
is  a  regular  feature,  we  are  horrified,  and 
are  apt  to  proclaim  the  fact  that  our 
judges  never  take  bribes.  But,  practic- 
ally, it  comes  to  very  nearly  the  same 
thing  in  England.  No  single  step  can  be 
made  for  the  purpose  of  getting  justice 
without  paying  fees ;  while  the  whole  pro- 
cess of  bringing  or  defending  an  action- 
at-law  is  so  absurdly  complex  as  to  be 
almost  incredible.  Jeremy  Bentham  sati- 
rised this  by  supposing  a  father  of  a  large 
family  to  adopt  the  same  method  of  set- 
tling a  dispute  between  two  of  his  sons. 
He  would  not  hear  either  of  them  himself, 
but  each  must  tell  his  story  to  a  stranger 
(a  solicitor),  who  wrote  it  down  and  then 
instructed  another  stranger  (a  barrister) 
to  explain  it  to  the  father  (as  judge)  and 

62 


Our  "Justice"  is  Immoral 

twelve  neighbours  (the  jury).  Then  the 
stranger  (barrister)  on  each  side  asked 
questions  of  all  the  family  who  knew  any- 
thing about  it ;  and  the  barristers,  who 
had  only  third-hand  knowledge  of  the 
facts,  tried  to  make  each  witness  contra- 
dict himself,  or  to  acknowledge  having 
done  something  as  bad  another  time  ;  till 
the  jury  became  quite  puzzled,  and  often 
decided  as  the  cleverest  of  the  barristers 
told  them. 

That  is  really  the  system  of  law  courts 
to  this  day ;  and  it  is  grossly  unfair,  because 
the  party  who  can  pay  the  highest  fees 
for  the  services  of  the  most  experienced 
counsel  is  most  likely,  through  the  law- 
yer's skill  and  eloquence,  to  secure  a 
verdict  in  his  favour.  Yet  there  is  no 
effective  protest  against  this  unjust  and 
absurd  system,  which  absolutely  denies  all 
redress  of  wrongs  to  the  poor  man  when 
oppressed  by  a  rich  one.  One  would 
think  it  self-evident  that  justice  ceases  to 
be  justice  when  it  has  to  be  paid  for. 
But  the  system  is  so  time-hallowed,  the 
profession  of  a  barrister  so  honoured,  and 
its  rewards  so  great,  that  it  will  never  be 
abolished  till  there  comes  about  in  our 
social  system  that  fundamental  change 
63 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

which  will  cut  at  the  very  root-cause  of 
almost  all  our  existing  law-suits,  im- 
morality and  crime. 

In  our  criminal  as  well  as  our  civil 
law  and  procedure  there  is  equal  injustice. 
When  the  poor  man  is  accused  of  the 
slightest  offence  and  brought  before  a 
magistrate  by  the  police,  he  is,  even 
though  perfectly  honest  and  respectable, 
treated  from  the  very  first  as  if  he  were 
guilty,  often  refused  communication  with 
his  friends;  and,  when  the  accusation  is 
serious,  he  is  remanded  to  prison  again 
and  again  till  evidence  has  been  hunted 
up,  or  even  manufactured,  against  him. 
Experience  shows  that  the  latter  is  often 
done  and  a  quite  innocent  man  not  in- 
frequently punished.  The  dictum  of  the 
law,  that  an  Englishman  should  be  held 
to  be  innocent  till  he  is  proved  to  be 
guilty,  is  absolutely  reversed,  and  he  is 
treated  as  if  he  were  guilty  till,  against 
overwhelming  odds,  he  is  able  to  prove 
himself  innocent.  There  is  no  possible 
excuse  for  this  now,  and  at  the  very  least 
every  man  who  has  a  home  or  a  per- 
manent employment  should  be  at  once 
discharged  on  his  own  recognizances. 

Equally  unjust  and  barbarous  is  the 
64 


xi]       Our  "Justice"  is  Immoral 

1  system  of  money-fines,  often  for  merely 
nominal  offences,  with  the  alternative  of 
imprisonment.  To  the  well-off,  or  to  the 
habitual  criminal,  the  fine  is  a  trifle ;  but 
to  the  poor  man  charged  with  being  drunk, 
with  begging,  or  with  sleeping  under  a  hay- 
stack, or  any  such  act  which  is  no  real 
offence,  the  common  punishment  of  los. 
or  a  week's  imprisonment,  leaving  perhaps 
wife  and  children  to  starve  or  be  sent  to 
the  workhouse,  is  really  far  more  immoral 
than  the  alleged  offence. 

Again,  our  Poor  Law  itself,  as  usually 
administered,  is  utterly  immoral.  This  is 
what  a  competent  authority — Mr.  Sidney 
Webb — says  of  it : 

"  Underneath  the  feet  of  the  whole  wage-earning 
class  is  the  abyss  of  the  Poor  Law.  I  see  before  me 
a  respectable  family  applying  for  relief.  What  do 
we  do  to  them  ?  We,  the  Government  of  England, 
break  up  the  family.  We  strip  each  individual  of 
what  makes  life  worth  living.  When  the  man  enters 
the  workhouse  he  is  stripped  of  his  citizenship — 
branded  as  too  infamous  to  vote  for  a  member  of 
Parliament.  Once  in  the  workhouse,  we  put  him  to 
toil  or  to  loiter  under  conditions  that  are  so  demoralis- 
ing that  we  turn  him  into  a  wastrel.  And  we  strip 
the  wife  of  her  children.  We  send  her  to  the  wash- 
tub  or  the  sewing-room,  where  she  associates  with 
prostitutes  and  imbeciles.  The  little  children,  if  they 
F  65 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

are  under  five,  are  taken  to  the  workhouse  nursery, 
where  they  also  are  tended  by  prostitutes  and  imbe- 
ciles: There  they  remain,  day  after  day,  without  ever 
going  down  the  workhouse  steps  until  they  are  old 
enough  to  go  to  the  Poor  Law  school,  or  until  they 
are  taken  down  in  their  coffins,  owing  to  the  terrible 
mortality  among  the  workhouse  babies." 

Of  course,  all  workhouses  are  not  so 
bad  as  this,  but  many  are,  and  have  been 
during  the  three-quarters  of  a  century  of 
their  existence.  Can  we,  therefore,  wonder 
that  week  by  week  some  poor  and  honest 
parents  commit  suicide  rather  than  see 
their  children  starve,  or  be  separated 
from  them  in  the  workhouse !  The 
people  we  thus  drive  to  death  are  many 
of  them  as  good  as  we  ourselves  are ;  yet 
the  "  Guardians  of  the  Poor  " — well-to-do 
gentlemen  and  ladies — go  on  administer- 
ing it  week  after  week  and  year  after  year 
without  protest  or  apparent  compunction. 
Such  is  the  deadening  effect  of  long-con- 
tinued custom. 


66 


CHAPTER   XII 

INDICATIONS  OF  INCREASING  MORAL  DEGRA- 
DATION 

THERE  are  in  the  Reports  of  the  Registrar- 
General  a  few  statistics  of  special  import- 
ance because  they  clearly  point  to  certain 
kinds  of  moral  degradation  which  have 
been  increasing  for  the  last  half-century, 
thus  coinciding  with  our  exceptionally 
rapid  increase  in  wealth;  and  also,  as  I 
have  shown  in  preceding  chapters,  with 
various  forms  of  national,  economic,  and 
social  deterioration. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  continuous 
increase  in  deaths  from  alcoholism,  in 
proportion  to  population,  since  the  year 
1861.  Most  persons  will  be  amazed  to 
find  that  this  is  the  case,  because  the 
drinking  habit  has  certainly  diminished ; 
but  when  the  habit  becomes  so  powerful 
and  lasts  so  long  as  to  be  the  direct  cause 
of  death,  we  are  able  to  see  the  dimen- 
sions of  the  most  exaggerated  form  of 

67 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [c&. 

the  drink  evil.  The  following  figures  are 
taken  from  the  successive  Reports  re- 
ferred to  : — 

Deaths  from 

Average  Alcoholism  per 

of  Years  Million  living 

1861 — 1865   .    .    .  41.6 
1866 — 1870   .    .    -354 

1871—1875     .       .       .    37.6 

1876 — 1880  .  .  .  42.4 

1881—1885  .  .  .  48.2 

1886 — 1890  .  .  .  56.0 

1891 — 1895  .  .  .  67.8 

1896 — 1900  .  .  .85.8 

1901 — 1905  .  .  .  78.4 

1906 — 1910  .  .  .  54.6 

There  are  some  irregularities,  the  ratio 
being  nearly  equal  for  the  first  twenty 
years,  after  which  there  is  such  a  con- 
tinuous large  increase  that  from  1876-80 
to  1896-1900  the  mortality  is  doubled,  but 
for  the  last  ten  years  there  has  been  a 
decrease,  which  in  the  last  five  years  is 
very  marked. 

But  a  still  worse  and  more  disquiet- 
ing feature  is  the  recent  large  increase 
of  mortality  from  alcoholism  in  women. 
Figures  for  the  separate  sexes  were  not 

68 


xiq  Increasing  Moral  Degradation 

given  till   1876,   and  the  following  table 
shows  the  comparison  up  to  1910 : — 

Deaths  from 

Average  Alcoholism 

of  Years  per  Million 

Men  Women 

1876 — l88o       .  .     60. 1       .  .        24.0 

1881—1885  .,    66.6  ..  31.0 

1886 — 1890  . .    73.6  . .  39.2 

1891—1895  . .    86.6  . .  50.2 

1896 — 1900  . .  106.2  . .  66.6 

1901—1905  ..   95.0  ..  63.0 

1906 — 1910  . .   66.6  . .  43.6 

These  figures,  however  deplorable  and 
startling  in  themselves,  are  as  nothing  in 
comparison  with  what  they  imply.  Death 
from  drink,  more  than  in  the  case  of  any 
other  disease,  is  the  ultimate  and  rarely 
attained  result  of  the  vice  of  habitual 
intoxication.  Men  and  women  may  greatly 
injure  their  health,  ruin  their  families, 
and  be  disgraceful  drunkards,  and  yet  not 
die  of  it,  or  make  any  near  approach  to 
doing  so.  What  is  the  proportion  of  those 
who  are  morally  and  physically  injured 
by  drink  to  those  who  kill  themselves  by 
it,  is,  I  suppose,  unknown,  but  I  imagine 
that  one  in  a  thousand  is,  probably,  too 
high  an  estimate,  and  that  one  death 
69 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

among  ten  thousand  moderate  drinkers 
who  also  occasionally  or  frequently  become 
intoxicated,  would  be  nearer  the  mark. 
This  would  imply  an  increase  in  the  con- 
sumption of  alcoholic  drinks,  instead  of 
which  there  has  been  an  actual  diminu- 
tion. The  fact  probably  is  that  a  very 
large  number  of  moderate  drinkers  have 
ceased  to  consume  alcohol  in  any  form, 
and  this  would  account  for  a  much  larger 
reduction  in  the  total  than  has  actually 
occurred. 

On  the  other  hand,  owing  to  the 
increase  of  those  who  are  only  casually 
employed  in  our  great  cities,  and  whose 
one  luxury  is  the  excitement  of  drink,  a 
larger  quantity  of  cheap  and  injuriously 
adulterated  spirits  and  other  liquors  is 
consumed,  which,  combined  with  a  defi- 
ciency of  wholesome  food,  leads  more 
frequently  to  a  fatal  result. 

Increase  of  Suicide 

The  increase  has  been  long  known  and 
generally  admitted.  It  is  supposed  to  be 
largely  due  to  the  ever-increasing  struggle 
for  subsistence  in  our  great  cities,  the  con- 
sequent increase  of  unemployment,  and 
the  dread  of  the  workhouse  as  the  only 
70 


xii]  Increasing  Moral  Degradation 

alternative  to  starvation.  The  following 
are  the  figures  for  the  last  forty -five 
years  for  which  official  data  have  been 
published : — 

Deaths  by 

s™d*  K 

Million  living 
1866 — 1870      .  .  .          66.4 

1871 — 1875     .         .         .       66.0 

1876 — 1860  .  .  .  73.6 
l88l—l885  .  .  .  73.8 
l886 — 1890  .  .  .79.4 

1891—1895  .  .  .  88.6 
1896 — 1900  .  .  .  89.2 
1901 — 1905  .  .  .  100.6 

1906 — 1910       .  .  .       102.2 

Such  a  table  as  this,  occurring  in  a 
country  which  boasts  of  its  enormous 
wealth,  of  its  ever-increasing  commercial 
prosperity,  of  its  marvellous  advance  in 
science  and  the  arts,  and  command  of 
natural  forces,  should,  surely,  give  us 
pause,  and  force  upon  us  the  conviction 
that  there  is  something  radically  wrong 
in  a  social  system  which  brings  about 
such  terrible  evils. 

And  this  should  be  the  more  certainly 
seen  to  be  the  case  because  the  same 
Zl 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

increase  is  taking  place  in  all  those  coun- 
tries which  approach  us  in  their  wealth 
and  their  commercial  prosperity. 

There  is  a  group  of  diseases  which  are 
fatal  to  infants  soon  after  birth.  They 
have  been  steadily  increasing  during  the 
last  half-century,  and  call  for  special 
notice  here,  as  they  seem  to  indicate 
physical  degeneration  as  well  as  personal 
immorality  of  a  dangerous  and  perhaps 
even  a  criminal  nature. 


Five-year 
Average 

l86l—l865 
1866—1870 
1871—1875 
1876—1880 
l88l—l885 
1886—1890 
1891—1895 
1896 — 10/)0 
I90I—I905 
1906 — 1909 


Proportion  of  Deaths 
to  i.ooo  Births 


Premature 
Births 

11.19 
11.50 

12.60 

13.38 

14.18 

16.1 
18.4 
19.6 

20.2 
2O. O 


Congenital 
Defects 

1.76 
1.84 
1-85 
2-39 
3-23 
4.2 

4-7 
4-9 

5-9 
6.6 


The    large    increase    during    the    last 
forty-five    years    of    very    early    infantile 
deaths,  involving  abnormalities  of  mother 
73 


xn]   Increasing  Moral  Degradation 

or  child,  seems  very  significant.  The 
first  may  be  connected  with  the  increas- 
ing dislike  of  child-bearing,  and  unsuc- 
cessful attempts  to  avoid  it.  The  second 
indicates  some  injurious  condition  of  life 
of  the  mother,  such  as  working  at  un- 
healthy or  even  deadly  trades,  which  has 
certainly  been  largely  increasing  during 
the  same  period.  Such  work  for  young 
married  women  should  be  impossible  in 
a  civilised  community. 

On  the  vast  subject  of  prostitution,  of 
which  the  present  movement  for  the  sup- 
pression of  what  is  called  "  The  White 
Slave  Traffic  "  is  but  one  of  the  aspects, 
I  do  not  propose  to  dwell,  because  I  can 
find  no  statistics  to  show  whether  it  has 
increased  or  decreased  during  the  last 
century.  But  as  the  conditions  have  all 
been  favourable  for  it,  I  have  little  doubt 
that  it  has  increased  in  proportion  to 
population.  Such  conditions  are,  the  enor- 
mous growth  of  great  cities ;  an  increasing 
number  of  unmarried  and  wealthy  young 
men ;  with  an  enormous  number  of  girls 
and  young  women  whose  wages  are  insuf- 
ficient to  provide  them  with  the  rational 
enjoyments  of  life. 

73 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

The  proceedings  of  the  Divorce  Courts 
show  other  aspects  of  the  result  of  wealth 
and  leisure ;  while  a  friend  who  had  been 
a  good  deal  in  London  Society  assured 
me  that  both  in  country  houses  and  hi 
London  various  kinds  of  orgies  were 
occasionally  to  be  met  with  which  could 
hardly  have  been  surpassed  in  the  Rome 
of  the  most  dissolute  emperors. 

Of  war,  too,  I  need  say  nothing.  It 
has  always  been  more  or  less  chronic 
since  the  rise  of  the  Roman  Empire,  but 
there  is  now  undoubtedly  a  disinclination 
for  war  among  all  civilised  peoples.  Yet 
the  vast  burden  of  armaments,  taken 
together  with  the  most  pious  declarations 
in  favour  of  peace,  must  be  held  to  show 
an  almost  total  absence  of  morality  as 
a  guiding  principle  among  the  governing 
classes.  In  this  respect,  the  increasing 
power  of  Labour  -  parties  all  over  the 
world  seems  to  afford  the  only  hope  of  a 
real  moral  advance. 


74 


PART  II.-THEORETIGAL 

CHAPTER  XIII 

NATURAL    SELECTION    AMONG    ANIMALS 

WHILE  writing  the  present  volume  I  was 
led  to  refer  to  it  during  some  of  the  numer- 
ous interviews  on  the  occasion  of  my  recent 
birthday.  This  led  to  some  misrepresenta- 
tion of  my  views,  and  showed  me  how  few 
popular  press-writers  have  any  real  know- 
ledge of  the  nature  and  extent  of  "natural 
selection,"  more  especially  as  it  affects  the 
human  race.  There  is  also  the  same  ignor- 
ance as  regards  "  heredity  "  ;  and  this  latter 
has  become  almost  a  word  to  conjure  with, 
and  is  thought  by  most  writers  to  explain 
many  things  to  which  it  is  quite  inapplic- 
able, and  as  the  present  work  is  a  very  con- 
densed argument  founded  to  a  considerable 
extent  upon  these  great  natural  laws,  I 
propose  devoting  two  chapters  to  ex- 
plaining and  demonstrating  the  effect  of 

75 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

natural  selection  in  the  case  of  the  lower 
animals  and  of  man  respectively. 

That  such  an  explanation  is  necessary 
may  be  seen  from  the  following  extract 
from  one  of  our  most  influential  and 
well-written  daily  papers,  the  Pall  Mall 
Gazette.  After  referring  to  the  view  of  the 
utter  rottenness  of  our  present  civilisation, 
it  quotes  me  as  saying :  "  And  the  average 
of  mankind  will  remain  the  same  until 
natural  selection  steps  in  to  save  it." 
(What  I  actually  said  to  the  interviewer 
was  "  until  some  form  of  selection 
improves  it." )  The  writer  then  goes  on : 

"  These  words  must  have  struck  the  interviewer 
like  the  crack  of  doom.  For,  stated  popularly,  the 
theory  of  natural  selection  is  the  doctrine  of  '  Devil 
take  the  hindmost.'  If  natural  selection  had  fair 
play  there  would  be  no  Children's  Care  Committees  ; 
there  would  be  no  Poor  Law,  no  Hospitals  ;  there 
would  be  no  Old  Age  Pensions.  All  the  humanitarian 
effort  to  care  for  the  weak  and  to  help  them  along 
the  path  of  life,  every  effort  to  bind  up  the  broken- 
hearted, every  combination  of  labour  to  secure 
equality  among  the  members  of  a  trade,  stand  con- 
demned as  futile  or  worse  by  the  doctrine  which 
Dr.  Russel  Wallace  thinks  can  alone  raise  the  average 
of  man.  His  own  remedies  for  the  ills  of  society — 
the  levelling  up  which  he  believes  to  be  impossible 
without  levelling  down,  the  disinheriting  of  the  un- 
born heir,  the  '  striking '  which  he  applauds,  the 
76 


Selection  in  the  Animal  World 

universal  education  which  he  favours — all  these  are 
directly  antagonistic  to  the  workings  of  natural 
selection." 

Now,  as  I  am  credited  by  all  my  scientific 
friends  with  having  discovered  the  theory 
of  natural  selection  more  than  fifty  years 
ago,  and  as  the  whole  reading  public  have 
had  this  hammered  into  them  with  need- 
less repetition  during  the  whole  of  that 
period,  it  is  rather  amusing  to  be  told  now 
that  I  do  not  know  what  natural  selection 
is,  nor  what  it  implies.  It  is  also  a  striking 
proof  that  the  whole  subject  is  now  held 
to  be  so  old  and  commonplace  as  not  to  be 
worth  studying  by  a  popular  teacher  before 
writing  about  it  so  strongly  and  dogmatic- 
ally. If  he  had  done  so  he  would  not 
deliberately  assert  that  I  hold  opinions  in 
regard  to  the  matter  which  in  several  of 
my  books  I  have  shown  the  fallacy  of. 

I  propose,  therefore,  to  give  here  a  short 
account  of  the  essential  features  of  the 
theory  of  natural  selection;  how  it  has 
operated  in  bringing  about  the  evolution 
of  the  almost  infinitely  varied  forms  of 
plants  and  of  the  lower  animals ;  and  also 
to  explain  as  clearly  as  I  can  why,  and  to 
what  extent,  it  has  acted  differently  in  the 
case  of  man. 

77 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

Lamarckism  and  Darwinism — How  they 
Differ 

The  first  great  naturalist  who  put  for- 
ward a  detailed  explanation  of  how  he 
supposed  the  varied  forms  of  animal  life 
to  have  been  produced  was  Lamarck,  a 
contemporary  of  Buffon  and  Goethe,  both 
of  whom  believed  in  evolution  but  offered 
no  explanation  of  how  it  could  have  been 
brought  about.  Lamarck,  however,  sug- 
gested that  the  various  organs  of  animals 
were  modified  by  voluntary  effort  producing 
increased  development,  as  when  an  antelope 
escapes  from  a  lion  by  its  swiftness,  which 
swiftness  is  increased  by  the  straining  of 
its  limbs  in  flight ;  while  the  long  neck  and 
fore-limbs  of  the  giraffe  were  explained  by 
the  continual  stretching  of  these  parts  of 
the  body  to  obtain  foliage  for  food  during 
severe  droughts.  In  addition  to  this 
other  causes  are  at  work,  as  described  in 
the  following  passage,  translated  or  para- 
phrased by  Sir  Charles  Lyell  in  his  Prin- 
ciples of  Geology : 

"  Every  considerable  alteration  in  the  local  con- 
ditions under  which  each  race  of  animals  exists  causes 
a  change  in  their  wants,  and  these  new  wants  excite 
them  to  new  actions  and  habits.  These  actions 
require  the  more  frequent  employment  of  some  parts 

78 


Selection  in  the  Animal  World 

before  but  slightly  exercised,  and  then  greater 
development  follows  as  a  consequence  of  their  more 
frequent  use.  Other  organs,  no  longer  in  use,  are 
impoverished  and  diminished  in  size ;  nay,  are 
sometimes  entirely  annihilated,  while  in  their  place 
new  parts  are  insensibly  produced  for  the  discharge 
of  new  functions." 

Again,  he  says: 

"  Thus  otters,  beavers,  water-fowl,  turtles,  and 
frogs  were  not  made  web-footed  in  order  that  they 
might  swim  ;  but  their  wants  having  attracted  them 
to  the  water  in  search  of  prey,  they  stretched  out 
the  toes  of  their  feet  to  strike  the  water  and  move 
rapidly  along  its  surface.  By  the  repeated  stretching 
of  their  toes  the  skin  which  united  them  at  the  base 
acquired  a  habit  of  extension,  until,  in  the  course 
of  time,  the  broad  membranes  which  now  connect 
their  extremities  were  formed." 

In  the  case  of  plants,  where  no  volun- 
tary movements  occur,  the  cause  of  modifi- 
cation was  said  to  be  due  almost  exclusively 
to  the  change  of  local  conditions,  as  the 
various  kinds  of  plants  became  dispersed 
over  the  earth's  surface.  The  influence  of 
soil,  of  temperature,  of  light  and  shade,  are 
supposed  to  produce  definite  changes  which 
are  gradually  increased ;  just  as  plants  long 
cultivated  in  our  gardens  have  become  so 
changed  that  the  wild  progenitors  cannot 
now  be  recognised. 

79 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

Sir  Charles  Lyell,  who  made  a  careful 
study  of  Lamarck's  great  work,  notes 
especially  that  the  whole  of  the  argument 
is  vague  and  general,  and  that  no  cases  are 
given  in  which  is  shown  how  the  alleged 
causes  can  be  supposed  to  have  acted  so 
as  to  bring  about  the  innumerable  changes 
that  must  have  occurred.  What  is  more 
important,  however,  is  the  failure  to  explain 
how  the  numerous  minute  adaptations  of 
each  species  to  its  environment  could  have 
arisen  by  the  direct  action  of  that  environ- 
ment— in  plants,  the  infinitely  varied  forms 
of  leaves,  flowers,  and  fruits ;  in  animals, 
the  forms  and  sizes  of  the  teeth  of  mammalia 
and  of  the  beaks,  wings  and  feet  of  birds 
to  the  food  they  obtain  ;  while  the  enormous 
range  of  colour  and  marking  in  most  groups 
of  animals  are  such  as  no  amount  of  desire 
or  exertion  on  the  one  hand,  or  direct  action 
of  external  causes  on  the  other,  could 
possibly  have  brought  about.  It  is  not, 
therefore,  surprising  that,  although  a  vast 
amount  of  evidence  was  adduced  to  show 
that  changes  had  taken  place  leading  to 
the  evolution  of  species  from  pre-existing 
species,  yet  causes  adequate  to  bring  about 
the  changes,  and  especially  those  neces- 
sary to  produce  the  marvellous  adaptations 
80 


Selection  in  the  Animal  World 

continually  being  discovered,  had  not  been 
shown  to  exist. 

It  is  necessary  to  point  this  out,  because 
the  difference  between  the  almost  universal 
rejection  of  Lamarck's  attempted  solution 
of  the  problem  of  evolution,  and  the  almost 
immediate  and  universal  acceptance  of  that 
adduced  by  Darwin,  is  otherwise  unexplained. 
The  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  evolution  as  the 
only  rational  explanation  of  the  gradual 
development  of  the  innumerable  forms  of 
living  things  became  more  and  more  general. 
The  great  body  of  arguments  in  its  favour 
were  admirably  set  forth  by  Robert  Cham- 
bers in  his  Vestiges  of  Creation,  published 
anonymously  in  1844 ;  while  Herbert 
Spencer's  masterly  exposition  of  the  argu- 
ment for  universal  evolution  convinced  a 
large  number  of  naturalists  and  men  of 
science.  But  still  the  nature  of  the  laws 
and  forces  by  which  the  evolution  of  the 
organic  world  in  all  its  variety  and  beauty, 
could  have  been  brought  about  remained 
not  only  unknown  but  unimagined,  so  that 
even  so  great  a  thinker  as  Sir  John  Herschel 
termed  it  "  the  mystery  of  mysteries." 
I  will  now  state  as  briefly  as  possible  the 
essential  features  of  Darwin's  solution  of 
the  mystery  in  his  epoch-making  work, 
The  Origin  of  Species. 

G  81 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

Natural  Selection  as  the  Essential  Factor 
in  the  Origin  of  Species 

There  are  two  great,  universal,  and  very 
conspicuous  characteristics  of  the  whole 
organic  world  which,  because  they  are  so 
very  common,  were  almost  ignored  before 
Darwin  showed  their  importance.  These 
are  (i)  the  great  variability  in  all  common 
and  widespread  species,  and  (2)  their  enor- 
mous powers  of  increase. 

The  facts  of  variability  are  recorded  in 
every  book  on  Darwinism  or  on  organic 
evolution,  and  it  is  only  necessary  here  to 
appeal  to  the  reader's  own  observation  or 
to  state  a  few  illustrative  facts.  Every- 
body sees  that  among  a  hundred  or  a 
thousand  people  he  knows  or  frequently 
meets  no  two  are  alike.  This  is  variability. 
He  also  knows  that  the  amount  of  the  differ- 
ences between  them  is  often  very  large, 
and  always,  if  you  have  any  two  of  them 
side  by  side,  easily  perceptible  and  capable 
of  being  described.  He  also  knows  that 
they  differ  in  every  part  and  organ  that 
can  be  seen  :  the  height,  the  bulk  of  body ; 
the  shape  of  the  hands,  feet,  head,  ears, 
nose,  and  mouth  ;  the  proportions  of  the 
legs,  arms,  and  body  to  each  other ;  the 

82 


Selection  in  the  Animal  World 

abundance  and  character  of  the  hair — coarse 
or  fine,  straight  or  curly,  and  of  all  colours 
between  flaxen  and  intense  black.  To  de- 
clare that  variability  among  men  and  women, 
even  of  the  same  race  and  in  the  same 
country,  is  a  rare  phenomenon,  and  that  in 
amount  it  is  infinitesimal,  would  be  a 
ludicrous  misstatement  of  the  facts  or  a 
wilful  perversion  of  the  truth.  But,  as 
regards  animals  or  plants  in  a  state  of 
nature,  this  misstatement  has  been  made 
and  has  been  used  as  an  argument  against 
the  Darwinian  theory.  It  is,  however,  now 
well  known,  as  a  matter  of  direct  observa- 
tion and  measurement,  that  when  a  few 
scores  or  hundreds  of  individuals  are  com- 
pared, even  in  the  same  district  and  at  the 
same  season,  they  differ  in  their  proportions 
to  about  the  same  amount,  and  to  some 
extent  in  every  visible  part  or  organ,  as 
do  human  beings. 

This,  however,  was  not  well  known 
when  Darwin  collected  the  materials  for 
his  various  works,  and  he  even  sometimes 
makes  the  proviso — "  if  they  vary,  for 
without  variation  selection  can  do  no- 
thing " ;  and  this  has  been  taken  as  an 
admission  that  variation  is  a  rare  instead 
of  being  a  universal  phenomenon.  He 

83 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

also  often  spoke  of  the  accumulation  of 
small  or  minute  variations,  and  this  has 
led  to  the  statement  that  variations  are 
infinitesimal  in  amount,  and  therefore  could, 
at  first,  be  of  no  use  to  the  possessor  in  the 
struggle  for  existence. 


Rapid  Increase  of  All  Organisms 

This  is  another  fact  of  Nature  which 
requires  to  be  kept  in  mind  in  all  dis- 
cussions of  the  action  of  natural  selection, 
yet  it  is  often  altogether  ignored  by 
critics  of  the  theory.  As  an  illustrative 
fact,  a  not  uncommon  European  weed  of 
the  Cruciferae  family  has  been  found  to 
produce  about  700,000  seeds  on  a  single 
plant,  whence  it  can  be  calculated  that  if 
every  seed  had  room  to  grow  for  three 
successive  years  their  produce  would  cover 
a  space  of  about  2,000  times  as  large  as 
the  whole  land  surface  of  the  globe.  Some 
of  the  minute  aquatic  forms  of  life  which 
increase  by  division  in  a  few  hours  would, 
if  they  all  had  the  means  of  living,  in  the 
same  period  occupy  a  space  equal  to  that 
of  the  entire  solar  system.  Even  the 
largest  and  slowest  breeding  of  all  known 
mammals,  i.e.  the  elephant,  would,  if 

84 


Selection  in  the  Animal  World 

allowed  space  to  live  and  breed  freely 
for  750  years,  result  in  no  less  than  nine- 
teen million  animals. 

By  far  the  larger  part  of  the  criticisms 
of  Darwinism  by  popular  writers  are  due 
to  their  continually  forgetting  these  two 
great  natural  facts :  enormous  variability 
about  a  mean  value  of  every  part  and 
organ ;  and  such  ever-present  powers  of 
multiplication  that,  even  in  the  case  of 
vertebrate  animals,  of  those  born  every 
year  only  a  small  proportion — one-tenth 
to  one-hundredth  or  thereabouts — live  over 
the  second  year.  If  they  all  lived  their 
numbers  would  go  on  continually  increas- 
ing, which  we  know  is  not  the  case.  Hence 
arises  what  has  been  termed  "  the  struggle 
for  existence,"  resulting  in  "  the  survival 
of  the  fittest." 

This  "  struggle  for  life "  is  either 
against  the  forces  of  inorganic  or  those  of 
organic  nature.  Among  the  former  are 
storms,  floods,  intense  cold,  long- continued 
droughts,  or  violent  blizzards,  all  of 
which  take  toll  of  the  weaker  or  less 
wary  individuals  of  each  species — those 
that  are  less  adapted  to  survive  such 
conditions.  In  judging  how  this  would 
act,  we  must  always  remember  the  enor- 

85 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress    [CH. 

mous  scale  on  which  Nature  works,  and 
that  although  now  and  then  a  few  of  the 
weaker  individuals  may  live  and  a  few 
of  the  stronger  be  killed,  yet  when  we 
deal  with  hundreds  of  millions,  of  which 
eighty  or  ninety  millions  inevitably  die 
every  year  while  about  ten  or  twenty 
millions  only  survive,  it  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  those  which  survive,  not  one 
year  only  but  year  after  year  through- 
out the  whole  existence  of  each  species,  are 
not  on  the  average  better  adapted  to  the 
complex  conditions  of  their  environment 
than  those  which  succumb  to  it.  It  is  a 
mere  truism  that  the  fittest  survive. 

Exactly  the  same  thing  occurs  in  the 
case  of  the  organic  environment,  to  which 
each  species  must  also  be  well  adapted 
in  order  to  live.  The  two  great  essen- 
tials for  animal  existence  are,  to  obtain 
abundant  food  through  successive  years, 
and  to  be  able  to  escape  from  their  vari- 
ous enemies.  When  food  is  scarce  the 
strongest,  or  those  who  can  feed  quickest 
and  digest  more  rapidly,  or  those  that 
can  detect  food  at  greater  distances  or 
reach  it  more  quickly,  will  have  the  ad- 
vantage. Enemies  are  escaped  by  strength, 
by  swiftness,  by  acute  vision,  by  wariness, 

86 


Selection  in  the  Animal  World 

or  by  colours  which  conceal  the  various 
species  in  their  natural  surroundings ;  and 
those  which  possess  these  or  any  other 
advantages  will  in  the  long  run  survive. 
The  weaker,  the  less  well-defended,  and 
the  smaller  species  often  have  special  pro- 
tection, such  as  nocturnal  habits,  making 
burrows  in  the  earth,  possessing  poison- 
ous stings  or  fangs,  being  covered  with 
protective  armour ;  while  great  numbers 
are  coloured  or  marked  so  as  exactly  to 
correspond  with  their  surroundings,  and 
are  thus  concealed  from  their  chief  enemies. 


Natural  Selection,  or  Survival  of  the 
Fittest 

It  may  be  here  noted  that  the  term 
"  Natural  Selection,"  which  has  often  been 
misunderstood,  was  suggested  to  Darwin 
by  the  way  in  which  almost  all  our  varie- 
ties of  cultivated  plants  and  domestic 
animals  have  been  obtained  from  wild 
forms  continually  improved  for  many 
generations.  The  method  is  to  breed 
large  quantities,  and  always  preserve  or 
"  select "  the  best  in  each  generation 
to  be  the  parents  of  the  next.  This 
method,  carried  on  by  hundreds  of  farmers, 

87 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

gardeners,  dog,  horse  or  poultry  breeders, 
and  especially  by  pigeon-fanciers,  has  re- 
sulted in  all  those  useful,  beautiful  and 
even  wonderful  varieties  of  fruits,  vege- 
tables and  flowers,  dray-horses  and  hunters, 
greyhounds,  spaniels  and  bull-dogs,  cows 
which  give  large  quantities  of  the  richest 
milk,  and  sheep  with  the  greatest  quan- 
tity and  finest  quality  of  wool.  All  these 
were  produced  gradually  for  the  special 
purposes  of  mankind  ;  but  a  similar  result 
has  been  effected  by  Nature  through 
rapid  increase,  great  variability,  and  con- 
tinual destruction  of  all  the  individuals 
less  adapted  to  the  conditions  of  their 
special  environment,  so  that  only  the 
strongest  or  the  swiftest,  the  best-con- 
cealed or  the  most  wary,  the  best  armed 
with  teeth,  horns,  hoofs  or  claws,  those 
who  could  swim  best,  or  those  that  pro- 
tected each  other  by  keeping  in  flocks  or 
herds — lived  the  longest  and  tended  to 
improve  still  further  the  next  generation. 
"Survival  of  the  fittest"  was  suggested 
by  Herbert  Spencer  as  best  describing 
exactly  what  happens,  and  it  is  a  most 
useful  descriptive  term  which  should  al- 
ways be  kept  in  mind  when  discussing  or 
investigating  the  process  by  which  the 

88 


xiii]  Selection  in  the  Animal  World 

infinitely  varied  and  beautiful  productions 
of  Nature  have  been  developed.  There 
is  really  not  one  single  part  or  organ  of 
any  plant  or  animal  that  cannot  have 
been  derived  by  means  of  the  fundamental 
facts  of  variability  and  reproduction  from 
some  allied  plant  or  animal. 

It  is  interesting  here  to  note,  that  the 
two  essential  factors  of  the  process  of  con- 
stant adaptation  to  the  environment  by 
great  variability  and  rapid  multiplication, 
formed  no  part  of  Lamarck's  theory,  which 
some  people  still  think  to  be  as  good  as 
Darwin's.  Equally  suggestive  is  the  fact 
that,  while  extensive  groups  of  life-pheno- 
mena, such  as  colour,  weapons,  hair,  scales, 
and  feathers,  can  hardly  be  conceived  as 
having  been  produced  or  modified  by 
effort  or  by  the  direct  action  of  the  environ- 
ment, they  are  yet,  every  one  of  them, 
perfectly  explained  by  the  fundamental 
and  necessary  processes  of  variability  and 
survival,  acting  slowly  and  continuously, 
but  with  intermittent  periods  of  extreme 
activity  at  long  intervals,  on  all  living 
things. 

One  of  the  weakest  and  most  foolish 
of  all  the  objections  to  the  Darwinian 
theory  is,  that  it  does  not  explain  varia- 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress    [CH. 

tion,  and  is  therefore  worthless.  We  might 
as  well  say  that  Newton's  discovery  of 
the  laws  of  gravitation  was  worthless 
because  its  cause  was  not  and  has  not 
yet  been  discovered ;  or  that  the  un- 
dulatory  theory  of  light  and  heat  is  worth- 
less, because  the  origin  of  the  ether,  the 
thing  that  undulates,  is  not  known.  The 
beginnings  of  things  can  never  be  known  ; 
and,  as  Darwin  well  said,  it  is  foolish  to 
waste  time  in  speculation  about  them.  I 
think  I  have  shown  in  my  World  of  Life 
that  infinite  variability  is  a  basic  law  of 
Nature,  and  have  suggested  its  probable 
purpose.  That  purpose  seems  to  have 
been  the  development  of  a  life-world  cul- 
minating in  Man — a  being  capable  of 
studying,  and  enjoying,  and  to  some  extent 
comprehending,  the  vast  universe  around 
him,  from  the  microscopic  life  in  almost 
every  drop  of  water  to  the  whirling 
nebulae  of  the  glittering  star-depths  ex- 
tending to  almost  unimaginable  distances 
around  him. 

Looking  at  him  thus,  man  is  as  much 
above,  and  as  different  from,  the  beasts 
that  perish  as  they  are  above  and  beyond 
the  inanimate  masses  of  meteoritic  matter 
which,  as  we  now  know,  occupy  the  appar- 

90 


Selection  in  the  Animal  World 

ently  vacant  spaces  of  our  solar  system, 
and  from  which  comets  and  stars  are  in 
all  probability  the  aggregations  due  to 
the  action  of  the  various  cosmic  forces 
which  everywhere  seem  capable  of  produc- 
ing variety  and  order  out  of  a  more  uni- 
form but  less  orderly  chaos. 

But  besides  this  lofty  intellect,  man 
is  gifted  with  what  we  term  a  moral  sense  : 
an  insistent  perception  of  justice  and  in- 
justice, of  right  and  wrong,  of  order  and 
beauty  and  truth,  which  as  a  whole  con- 
stitute his  moral  and  aesthetic  nature,  the 
origin  and  progress  of  which  I  have  en- 
deavoured to  throw  some  light  upon  in 
the  present  volume.  The  long  course  of 
human  history  leads  us  to  the  conclusion 
that  this  higher  nature  of  man  arose  at 
some  far  distant  epoch,  and  though  it 
has  developed  in  various  directions,  does 
not  seem  yet  to  have  elevated  the  whole 
race  much  above  its  earliest  condition, 
at  the  time  when,  by  the  influx  of  some 
portion  of  the  spirit  of  the  Deity,  man 
became  "a  living  soul." 

We  will  now  consider  some  of  the 
changes  which  this  higher  nature  of  man 
has  produced  in  the  action  of  the  laws  of 
variation  and  natural  selection.  These  are 

9* 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

very  important,  and  are  so  little  under- 
stood that  almost  all  popular  writers  on 
the  subject  of  the  future  of  mankind  are 
led  into  stating  as  scientific  conclusions 
what  are  wholly  opposed  to  the  actual 
teaching  of  evolution. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SELECTION  AS  MODIFIED   BY  MIND 

THE  theory  of  natural  selection  as  ex- 
pounded by  Darwin  was  so  completely 
successful  in  explaining  the  origin  of  the 
almost  infinitely  varied  forms  of  the  organic 
world,  step  by  step,  during  the  long  suc- 
cession of  the  geological  ages,  that  it  was 
naturally  supposed  to  be  equally  applicable 
to  mankind.  This  was  thought  to  be  almost 
certain  when,  in  his  later  work,  The  Descent 
of  Man,  Darwin  proved  by  a  series  of  con- 
verging facts  and  convincing  arguments 
that  the  physical  structure  of  man  was  in 
all  its  parts  and  organs  so  extremely  similar 
to  that  of  the  anthropoid  apes  as  to  demon- 
strate the  descent  of  both  from  some 
common  ancestor. 

So  close  is  this  resemblance  that  every 
bone  and  muscle  in  the  human  body  has 
its  counterpart  in  that  of  the  apes,  the  only 
differences  being  slight  modifications  in 
their  shape  and  position ;  yet  these  differ- 
ences lead  to  external  forms,  attitudes,  and 

93 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

modes  of  life  so  divergent  that  we  can 
hardly  recognise  the  close  affinity  that  really 
exists.  This  affinity  is  so  real  and  unmis- 
takable that  such  a  great  and  conservative 
zoologist  as  the  late  Sir  Richard  Owen 
declared  that  to  discover  and  define  any 
important  differences  between  them  was 
the  anatomist's  difficulty.  It  was  in  the 
dimensions,  the  shape,  and  the  proportions 
of  the  brain  that  Owen  found  a  sufficient 
amount  of  distinctive  characters  to  enable 
him  to  place  Man  in  a  separate  order  of 
mammals — Bimana,  or  two-handed — while 
the  remainder  of  the  whole  monkey  tribe — 
including  the  apes,  baboons,  monkeys,  and 
lemurs — formed  the  order  Quadrumana,  or 
four-handed  animals.  This  classification 
has  been  rejected  by  most  modern  biologists, 
who  consider  man  to  form  a  distinct  family 
only — Hominidae — of  the  order  Primates, 
which  order  includes  all  four  -  handed 
animals  as  well  as  man. 

But  if  we  recognise  the  brain  as  the  organ 
of  the  mind,  and  give  due  weight  to  the 
complete  distinctness  and  enormous  supe- 
riority of  the  mind  of  man  as  compared  with 
that  of  all  other  mammals,  we  shall  be  in- 
clined to  accept  Owen's  view  as  the  most 
natural ;  and  this  becomes  almost  certain 

94 


xiv]    Selection  Modified  by  Mind 

when  we  realise  the  enormous  effect  his 
mind  has  produced,  in  modifying  and  almost 
neutralising  the  action  of  that  great  law  of 
natural  selection  which  has  held  supreme 
sway  in  every  other  portion  of  the  organic 
world. 

We  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter 
how  every  form  of  organic  life  during  all  the 
vast  extent  of  geological  time  has  been  sub- 
ject to  the  law  of  natural  selection,  which 
has  incessantly  moulded  their  bodily  form 
and  structure,  external  and  internal,  in  strict 
adaptation  to  the  successive  changes  of  the 
world  around  them ;  while  that  world  was 
itself  hardly,  if  at  all,  modified  by  them.  A 
few  isolated  cases — such  as  the  formation 
of  islands  by  the  coral-forming  zoophytes, 
or  the  damming  of  a  few  rivers  by  the  rude 
though  very  remarkable  labours  of  the 
beaver — can  hardly  be  considered  as  form- 
ing exceptions  to  this  law. 

But  so  soon  as  man  appeared  upon  the 
earth,  even  in  the  earliest  periods  at  which 
we  have  any  proofs  of  his  existence,  or  in 
the  lowest  state  of  barbarism  in  which  we 
are  now  able  to  study  him,  we  find  him 
able  to  use  and  act  upon  the  forces  of 
Nature,  and  to  modify  his  environment, 
both  inorganic  and  organic,  in  ways  which 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  COT. 

formed  a  completely  new  departure  in  the 
entire  organic  world. 

Among  the  very  rudest  of  modern  sav- 
ages the  wounded  or  the  sick  are  assisted, 
at  least  with  food  and  shelter,  and  often  in 
other  ways,  so  that  they  recover  under  cir- 
cumstances that  to  most  of  the  higher 
animals  would  be  fatal.  Neither  does  less 
robust  health  or  vigour,  or  even  the  loss 
of  a  limb  or  of  eyesight,  necessarily  entail 
death.  The  less  fit  are  therefore  not  elimin- 
ated as  among  all  other  animals ;  and  we  be- 
hold, for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  the  great  law  of  natural  selection  by 
the  survival  only  of  "  the  fittest "  to  some 
extent  neutralised. 

But  this  is  only  the  first  and  least  import- 
ant of  the  effects  produced  by  the  superior 
faculties  of  man.  In  the  whole  animal 
world,  as  we  have  seen,  every  species  is 
preserved  in  harmony  with  the  slowly 
changing  environment  by  modifications  of 
its  own  organs  or  faculties,  thus  gradually 
leading  to  the  production  of  new  species 
equally  adapted  to  the  new  environment  as 
its  ancestor  was  before  the  change  occurred. 

In  the  case  of  man,  however,  such  bodily 
adaptations  were  unnecessary,  because  his 
greatly  superior  mind  enabled  him  to  meet 

96 


Selection  Modified  by  Mind 

all  such  difficulties  in  a  new  and  different 
way.  As  soon  as  his  specially  human 
faculties  were  developed  (and  we  have  as 
yet  no  knowledge  of  him  in  any  earlier  con- 
dition), he  would  cease  to  be  influenced  by 
natural  selection  in  his  physical  form  and 
structure.  Looked  at  as  a  mere  animal  he 
would  remain  almost  stationary,  the  changes 
in  the  surrounding  universe  ceasing  to  pro- 
duce in  him  that  powerful  modifying  effect 
which  they  exercise  over  all  other  members 
of  the  entire  organic  world.  In  order  to  pro- 
tect himself  from  the  larger  and  fiercer  of 
the  mammalia  he  made  use  of  weapons,  such 
as  stone-headed  clubs,  wooden  spears,  bows 
and  arrows,  and  various  kinds  of  traps  and 
snares,  all  of  which  are  exceedingly  effective 
when  families  or  larger  groups  combine  in 
their  use.  Against  the  severity  of  the 
seasons  he  protected  himself  with  a  clothing 
of  skins,  and  with  some  form  of  shelter  or 
well-built  house,  in  which  he  could  rest 
securely  at  night,  free  from  tempestuous 
rains  or  the  attacks  of  wild  beasts.  By  the 
use  of  fire  he  was  enabled  to  render  both 
roots  and  flesh  more  palatable  and  more 
digestible,  thus  increasing  the  variety  and 
abundance  of  his  food  far  beyond  that  of 
any  species  of  the  lower  animals.  Yet 
H  97 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  ten. 

further,  by  the  simplest  forms  of  cultiva- 
tion, he  was  able  to  increase  the  best  of  the 
fruits,  the  roots,  the  tubers,  as  well  as  the 
more  nutritious  of  the  seeds,  such  as  those 
of  rice  and  maize,  of  wheat  and  of  barley, 
thus  securing  in  convenient  proximity  to 
his  dwelling-place  an  abundance  of  food  to 
supply  all  his  wants  and  render  him  almost 
always  secure  against  scarcity  or  famine  or 
disastrous  droughts. 

We  see,  then,  that  with  the  advent  of 
Man  there  had  come  into  existence  a  being 
in  whom  that  subtle  force  we  term  mind 
became  of  far  more  importance  than  mere 
bodily  structure.  Though  with  a  naked 
and  unprotected  body,  this  gave  him  cloth- 
ing against  the  varied  inclemencies  of  the 
seasons.  Though  unable  to  compete  with 
the  deer  in  swiftness  or  with  the  wild  bull 
in  strength,  this  gave  him  weapons  with 
which  to  capture  or  overcome  both.  Though 
less  capable  than  most  other  animals  of 
living  on  the  herbs  and  the  fruits  that 
unaided  Nature  supplies,  this  wonderful 
faculty  taught  him  to  govern  and  direct 
Nature  to  his  own  benefit,  and  compelled 
her  to  produce  food  for  him  almost  where 
and  when  he  pleased.  From  the  moment 
when  the  first  skin  was  used  as  a  covering, 

98 


Selection  Modified  by  Mind 

when  the  first  rude  spear  was  formed  to 
assist  him  in  the  chase,  when  fire  was  first 
used  to  cook  his  food,  when  the  first  seed 
was  sown  or  shoot  planted,  a  grand  revo- 
lution was  effected  in  Nature — a  revolution 
which  in  all  previous  ages  of  the  earth's 
history  had  had  no  parallel.  A  being  had 
arisen  who  was  no  longer  subject  to  bodily 
change  with  changes  of  the  physical  universe 
— a  being  who  was  in  some  degree  superior 
to  Nature,  inasmuch  as  he  knew  how  to 
control  and  regulate  her  action,  and  could 
keep  himself  in  harmony  with  her,  not 
through  any  change  in  his  body,  but  by 
means  of  his  vast  superiority  in  mind. 

The  view  above  expounded  of  the  trans- 
ference of  the  action  of  natural  selection 
from  the  bodily  structure  to  the  mind  of 
early  man  was  my  first  original  modifica- 
tion of  that  theory,  having  been  communi- 
cated to  the  Anthropological  Review  in  1864. 
It  received  the  approval  both  of  Darwin 
himself  and  of  Herbert  Spencer,  and  I  am 
not  aware  that  anyone  has  shown  any  flaw 
in  the  reasoning  by  which  it  is  established. 
It  is  certainly  of  high  importance,  since  if 
true  it  renders  impossible  any  important 
change  in  the  external  form  of  mankind, 

99 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

while  it  serves  as  an  explanation  of  the  com- 
plete identity  of  specific  type  of  the  three 
great  races  of  man — the  Caucasian  or  white, 
the  Mongolian  or  yellow,  and  the  Negroid 
or  black — in  every  essential  of  human  form 
and  structure,  while  in  their  best  examples 
they  approach  very  nearly  to  the  same 
ideal  of  symmetry  and  of  beauty.  Yet  so 
little  attention  has  been  given  to  this  view 
that  most  popular  and  even  some  scientific 
writers  take  it  for  granted  that  no  such 
difference  exists  between  man  and  the 
lower  animals.  They  assume  that  we  are 
destined  to  have  our  bodies  modified  in 
the  remote  future  in  some  unknown  way, 
and  that  the  idea  that  there  is  anything 
approaching  final  perfection  in  the  human 
form  is  a  mere  figment  of  the  imagination. 
Others  are  so  imbued  with  the  univer- 
sality of  natural  selection  as  a  beneficial  law 
of  Nature  that  they  object  to  our  interfer- 
ing with  its  action  in,  as  they  urge,  the 
elimination  of  the  unfit  by  disease  and 
death,  even  when  such  diseases  are  caused 
by  the  insanitary  conditions  of  our  modern 
cities  or  the  misery  and  destitution  due  to 
our  irrational  and  immoral  social  system. 
Such  writers  entirely  ignore  the  undoubted 
fact  that  affection,  sympathy,  compassion 

IOO 


Selection  Modified  by  Mind 

form  as  essential  a  part  of  human  nature  as 
do  the  higher  intellectual  and  moral  facul- 
ties ;  that  in  the  very  earliest  periods  of 
history  and  among  the  very  lowest  of  exist- 
ing savages  they  are  fully  manifested,  not 
merely  between  the  members  of  the  same 
family,  but  throughout  the  whole  tribe, 
and  also  in  most  cases  to  every  stranger 
who  is  not  a  known  or  imagined  enemy. 
The  earliest  book  of  travels  I  remember 
hearing  read  by  my  father  was  that  of 
Mungo  Park,  one  of  the  first  explorers  of 
the  Niger.  He  was  once  alone  and  sick 
there,  and  some  negro  women  nursed  him, 
fed  him,  and  saved  his  life  ;  and  while  lying 
in  their  hut  he  heard  them  singing  about 
him  as  the  poor  white  man,  of  whom  they 
said : — 

"  He  has  no  mother  to  give  him  milk, 
No  wife  to  grind  his  corn." 

Hospitality  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  most 
general  of  all  human  virtues,  and  in  some 
cases  is  almost  a  religion.  It  is  an  inherent 
part  of  what  constitutes  "  human  nature," 
and  it  is  directly  antagonistic  to  the  rigid 
law  of  natural  selection  which  has  univer- 
sally prevailed  throughout  the  lower  animal 
world.  Those  who  advocate  our  allowing 

101 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

natural  selection  to  have  free  play  among 
ourselves  on  the  ground  that  we  are  interfer- 
ing with  Nature,  are  totally  ignorant  of 
what  they  are  talking  about.  It  is  Nature 
herself,  untaught,  unsophisticated  human 
nature,  which  they  are  seeking  to  interfere 
with.  They  seek  to  degrade  the  higher 
nature  to  the  level  of  the  lower,  to  bring 
down  Heaven-born  humanity,  in  its  essen- 
tial characteristics  only  a  little  lower  than 
the  angels,  to  the  infinitely  lower  level  of 
the  beasts  that  perish. 

The  conclusion  reached  in  the  earlier 
portion  of  this  volume,  that  the  higher  in- 
tellectual and  moral  nature  of  man  has  been 
approximately  stationary  during  the  whole 
period  of  human  history,  and  that  the  cause 
of  the  phenomenon  has  been  the  absence  of 
any  selective  agency  adequate  to  increase 
it,  renders  it  necessary  to  give  some  further 
explanation  as  to  the  probable  or  possible 
origin  of  this  higher  nature,  and  also  of  that 
admirable  human  body  which  also  appears 
to  have  reached  a  condition  of  permanent 
stability. 


1 02 


CHAPTER    XV 

THE  LAWS  OF  HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT 

IN  dealing  with  the  great  problems  of 
organic  development  there  is  probably  no 
department  in  which  so  much  error  and 
misconception  prevails  as  on  the  nature 
and  limitations  of  Heredity.  These  mis- 
conceptions not  only  pervade  most  popu- 
lar writings  on  the  subject  of  evolution, 
but  even  those  of  men  of  science  and  of 
specialists  in  biology,  and  they  are  the 
more  important  and  dangerous  because 
their  promulgators  are  able  to  quote  Her- 
bert Spencer,  and  to  a  less  extent  Darwin, 
as  holding  similar  views. 

The  subject  is  of  special  importance 
here  because  it  involves  the  question  of 
whether  the  effects  of  the  environment, 
including  education  and  training,  are  in 
any  degree  transmitted  from  the  indivi- 
duals so  modified  to  their  progeny  — 
whether  they  are  or  are  not  cumulative. 
It  is,  in  fact,  the  much  discussed  and 
vitally  important  problem  of  the  Heredity 
103 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

of  Acquired  Characters.  The  effects  of 
use  and  disuse,  another  form  of  the  same 
general  phenomenon,  were  assumed  by 
Lamarck  to  be  inherited,  and  a  large  por- 
tion of  his  theory  of  evolution  rested  on 
this  assumption ;  it  seemed  so  probable, 
and  was  apparently  supported  by  so  many 
facts,  that  Darwin,  like  most  other  natural- 
ists at  the  time,  accepted  it  without  any 
special  inquiry,  and  when  he  worked  out 
his  theory  of  Pangenesis  in  order  to  ex- 
plain the  main  facts  of  heredity,  his  sup- 
positions were  adapted  to  include  such 
phenomena.  Let  us  then  first  explain 
what  is  meant  by  the  "  acquired  charac- 
ters "  which  it  was  thought  that  a  true 
theory  of  heredity  must  explain. 

As  a  rule,  the  great  majority  of  the 
peculiarities  of  any  species  of  animal  or 
plant  are  constantly  reproduced  in  its 
offspring.  The  short  tail  of  the  wren, 
the  much  longer  tail  of  the  long-tailed  tit, 
the  crest  of  the  crested  tit  and  of  in- 
numerable other  birds,  always  when 
full-grown  exhibit  the  same  characters  as 
in  their  parents.  These  are  said  to  be 
innate  characters.  In  rare  cases,  how- 
ever, offspring  are  born  which  differ  mate- 
rially from  their  parents,  as  when  a  white 

194 


xv]       Heredity  and  Environment 

blackbird  or  a  six-toed  kitten  appears, 
but  these  are  equally  innate,  and  are  often 
strongly  inherited.  All  these  are  subject 
to  variation,  and  can  therefore  be  modi- 
fied by  selection,  whether  natural  or  arti- 
ficial, and  the  effects  of  such  selection  in 
the  case  of  domestic  animals  is  often 
enormous.  Such  are  the  pouters  and 
tumblers  among  pigeons,  the  bull-dog 
and  the  greyhound,  the  numerous  breeds 
of  poultry,  all  of  which  are  known  to  have 
been  produced  by  artificial  selections  of 
favourable  variations  extending  over  many 
centuries ;  and  the  characters  of  these 
varieties  are  all  strongly  inherited. 

Characters  which  are  acquired  during 
the  life  of  the  individual  owing  to  differ- 
ences in  the  use  of  certain  organs  or  of 
exposure  to  light,  heat,  drought,  wind, 
moisture,  etc.,  are  comparatively  very 
slight,  and  are  liable  to  be  so  combined 
with  innate  characters  and  with  the  effects 
of  natural  or  artificial  selection,  that  it  is 
exceedingly  difficult  to  ascertain,  without 
such  careful  and  long-continued  experi- 
ments as  have  not  yet  been  made,  whether 
they  are  in  any  degree  transmissible  from 
parent  to  offspring,  and  therefore  cumula- 
tive. 

105 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

Almost  every  individual  case  of  sup- 
posed inheritance  of  such  characters,  when 
carefully  examined,  has  been  found  to  be 
explicable  in  other  ways ;  but  there  is 
a  very  large  amount  of  general  evidence, 
demonstrating  that  even  if  a  certain  small 
amount  of  such  inheritance  exists,  it  can 
certainly  not  be  a  factor  of  any  import- 
ance in  the  process  of  organic  evolution, 
all  the  factors  of  which  must  be  univers- 
ally present  because  the  process  itself  is 
universal.  I  will  therefore  here  limit  my- 
self to  a  short  enumeration  of  a  few  of  the 
very  numerous  cases  in  which  the  con- 
tinued use  of  an  organ  does  not  strengthen 
or  improve  it,  but  often  the  reverse  ;  and 
of  others  in  which  it  cannot  be  asserted 
that  the  action  of  the  environment  can 
have  had  any  part  whatever  in  the  con- 
tinuous change  or  specialisation  of  the 
part  or  organ.  The  number,  size,  form, 
position,  and  composition  of  the  teeth  of 
all  the  mammalia  are  extremely  varied, 
and  throughout  the  whole  class  afford  the 
best  characters  to  distinguish  family  and 
generic  groups ;  they  are  therefore  of 
great  value  in  determining  the  affinities  of 
extinct  forms,  because  the  jaws  and  teeth, 
especially  the  latter,  are  most  frequently 
1 06 


xv]      Heredity  and  Environment 

preserved.  But  as  the  permanent  teeth 
are  always  fully  formed  while  buried  in 
the  jawbones  and  covered  by  the  gums,  it 
is  quite  certain  that  the  special  adaptation 
of  the  teeth  of  each  species  to  seize,  crush, 
tear,  or  grind  up  its  particular  food  can- 
not possibly  have  been  produced  by  the 
act  of  feeding,  the  effect  of  which  is  almost 
always  to  grind  away  the  teeth  and  render 
them  less  serviceable.  Such  adaptation 
could  not  possibly  have  been  produced  by 
use  alone,  or  any  other  direct  action  of 
the  environment.  Yet,  as  the  adapta- 
tion is  clear,  and  often  very  remarkable, 
some  eminent  palaeontologists  have  de- 
clared it  to  be  proved  that  the  changes 
in  them  were  produced  by  the  changes 
in  the  environment,  and  that  they  con- 
stitute very  strong  evidence  of  the 
"  inheritance  of  acquired  characters  " — a 
statement  unsupported  by  any  direct 
evidence. 

The  same  objection  applies  to  most  of 
the  special  organs  of  sense.  The  internal 
organ  of  hearing  is  a  highly  complex  series 
of  bones  and  membranes,  protected  by 
the  outer  ear ;  but  it  cannot  be  even 
imagined  to  have  been  gradually  deve- 
loped by  the  action  of  the  air  waves  the 
107 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

vibrations  of  which  it  conveys  to  the 
brain. 

The  eye  is  a  still  more  striking  case, 
as  too  much  use  injures  or  even  destroys 
it ;  while  specialities  of  vision,  as  long  or 
short  sight,  are  undoubtedly  innate,  and 
usually  persist  throughout  life. 

So  the  wonderfully  varied  bills  of  birds 
cannot  be  conceived  as  having  been  modi- 
fied by  use,  and  are,  in  fact,  unchange- 
able when  once  formed.  Yet,  as  they 
vary  largely  in  every  species,  they  are 
readily  modified,  so  as  to  become  adapted 
to  new  conditions  by  the  "  survival  of  the 
fittest." 

Equally  impossible  is  it  to  connect  any 
use  or  disuse,  or  environmental  action, 
hi  the  production,  the  gradual  develop- 
ment, or  complete  adaptation  to  their 
conditions  of  life  of  the  outer  coverings 
of  almost  all  living  things — the  hair  of 
mammalia,  the  feathers  of  birds,  the  scales 
or  horny  skins  or  solid  shields  of  reptiles, 
the  solid  shells  of  molluscs,  wonderfully 
ribbed  or  spined,  whorled,  or  turreted,  and 
infinitely  varied  in  surface  colour  and 
markings.  Even  more  conclusive  are  the 
facts  presented  by  the  vast  hosts  of  the 
insect  world,  from  the  massive  armour  of 
1 08 


xv]      Heredity  and   Environment 

the  ever-present  beetle  tribe,  more  varied 
in  form,  structure,  ornament,  and  colour 
than  any  other  comparable  group  of  living 
things,  to  the  widely  different  lepidoptera, 
equalling,  or  perhaps  surpassing,  the  whole 
class  of  birds  in  their  marvellous  grace  and 
beauty,  yet  all  utterly  beyond  any  pos- 
sible direct  action  of  the  environment  or 
of  use  and  disuse  in  their  development, 
and  their  close  adaptation  to  that  environ- 
ment. 

Organic  nature  is  indisputably  one 
and  indivisible.  It  has  been  developed 
throughout  by  means  of  the  fundamental 
forces  of  life,  of  growth  and  reproduction, 
and  the  equally  fundamental  laws  of  varia- 
tion, heredity,  and  enormous  increase,  re- 
sulting in  a  perpetual  adaptation  in  form, 
structure,  colour,  and  habits  to  the  slowly 
changing  environment.  These  forces  and 
laws  are  universal  in  their  action ;  they 
are  demonstrably  adequate  to  the  pro- 
duction of  the  whole  of  the  phenomena 
we  are  now  discussing.  We  see,  then, 
that  over  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
whole  world  of  life  any  modification  of 
external  structure,  form,  or  colouring  during 
the  life  of  the  individual  is  impossible ; 
while  in  the  remainder  its  action,  if  it 
109 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

exists  at  all,  is  of  very  limited  range.  No 
adequate  proof  of  the  inheritance  of  the 
slight  changes  thus  caused  has  ever  yet 
been  given,  and  it  is  therefore  wholly 
unnecessary  and  illogical  to  assume  its 
existence  and  to  adduce  it  as  having  any 
part  in  the  ever-active  and  universal 
process  of  evolution. 

Throughout  the  whole  series  of  the 
animal  world,  and  especially  in  the  higher 
groups  which  approach  nearest  to  our- 
selves, mental  and  physical  characters  are 
so  inextricably  intermixed  in  their  rela- 
tion to  the  laws  of  evolution  and  heredity, 
that  either  of  them  studied  separately 
leads  us  to  the  same  conclusions.  We  are 
not,  therefore,  surprised  to  find  that 
breeders  of  animals  of  all  kinds  act  upon 
the  principle  that  all  the  qualities  of  the 
various  stocks,  whether  bodily  or  mental, 
are  innate  and  have  been  due  to  selec- 
tion ;  while  training,  though  necessary  to 
bring  out  the  good  qualities  of  the  indivi- 
dual, has  had  no  part  in  the  production 
of  those  qualities.  When  a  horse  or  dog 
of  good  pedigree  is  accidentally  injured 
so  that  it  cannot  be  regularly  trained,  it 
is  still  used  for  breeding  purposes  with- 
out any  doubt  as  to  its  conveying  to 
no 


xv]     Heredity  and   Environment 

its  progeny  the  highest  qualities  of  its 
parentage. 

In  the  case  of  the  human  race,  how- 
ever, many  writers  thoughtlessly  speak  of 
the  hereditary  effects  of  strength  or  skill 
due  to  any  mechanical  work  or  special 
art  being  continued  generation  after  gene- 
ration in  the  same  family,  as  among  the 
castes  of  India.  But  of  any  progressive 
improvement  there  is  no  evidence  what- 
ever. Those  children  who  had  a  natural 
aptitude  for  the  work  would,  of  course, 
form  the  successors  of  their  parents,  and 
there  is  no  proof  of  anything  hereditary 
except  as  regards  this  innate  aptitude. 

Many  people  are  alarmed  at  the  state- 
ment that  the  effects  of  education  and 
training  are  not  hereditary,  and  think  that 
if  that  were  really  the  case  there  would  be 
no  hope  of  improvement  of  the  race ;  but 
closer  consideration  will  show  them  that 
if  the  results  of  our  education  in  the  widest 
sense,  in  the  home,  in  the  shop,  in  the 
nation,  and  in  the  world  at  large,  had 
really  been  hereditary,  even  in  the  slightest 
degree,  then  indeed  there  would  be  little 
hope  for  humanity ;  and  there  is  no  clearer 
proof  of  this  than  the  fact  that  we  have 
not  all  been  made  much  worse — the  wonder 
in 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

being  that  any  fragment  of  morality,  or 
humanity,  or  the  love  of  truth  or  justice 
for  their  own  sakes  still  exists  among  us. 

If  we  glance  through  the  past  history 
of  mankind  we  see  an  almost  unbroken 
succession  of  aggression  and  combat  be- 
tween the  various  races,  nations,  and 
tribes.  We  can  dimly  see  that  this  con- 
tinual struggle  did  lead  to  a  rather  severe 
process  of  selection,  as  in  the  lower  animal 
world.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  as 
a  result  of  these  struggles  the  strongest 
physically,  the  most  ingenious  in  the  use 
of  weapons,  and  the  best  organised  for 
war  did  survive,  and  that  the  weaker  and 
lower  were  either  exterminated  or  kept 
as  slaves  by  the  conquerors.  This  leads 
to  alternation  of  success  and  failure.  We 
see  great  conquerors  and  great  material 
civilisations  as  a  result  of  their  accumula- 
tions of  wealth  and  of  slaves.  Then,  for 
a  time,  luxury  and  the  arts  flourished,  and 
with  them  came  rulers  who  encouraged 
degradation  and  vice  at  home,  supported 
by  more  and  more  remote  conquests. 
Then  new  conquerors  arose,  often  lower 
in  civilisation — barbarians,  as  they  were 
termed — but  higher  in  the  simple  domestic 

112 


xv]      Heredity  and  Environment 

virtues  and  a  more  natural  life  of  pro- 
ductive labour.  These  again,  or  some  por- 
tions of  them,  rose  to  luxury  and  civilisa 
tion,  to  lives  of  gross  sensuality  and  the 
most  cruel  despotism,  till  outraged  humanity 
raised  up  new  conquerors  to  go  over  again 
the  old  terrible  routine. 

The  periods  of  culmination  of  these 
old  civilisations,  founded  always  on  con- 
quest, massacre,  and  slavery,  are  marked 
out  for  us  by  the  ruins  of  great  cities, 
temples,  and  palaces,  often  of  wonderful 
grandeur,  and  with  indications  of  arts, 
science,  and  literature  which  still  excite 
our  admiration  in  Egypt  and  India,  Greece 
and  Rome ;  and  thence  through  the 
Middle  Ages  down  to  our  own  time.  But 
the  inhumanities  and  horrors  of  these 
periods  are  inconceivable.  A  gloomy  pic- 
ture of  them  is  given  in  that  powerful 
book,  The  Martyrdom  of  Man,  by  Win- 
wood  Reade ;  and  they  are  summarised 
in  Burns'  fine  lines : 

"  Man's  inhumanity  to  man 
Makes  countless  thousands  mourn." 

Think  of  the  horrors  of  war  in  the 
perpetual  wars  of  those  days  before  the 
"  Red  Cross "  service  did  anything  to 

i  113 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

alleviate  them.  Think  of  the  old  castles, 
many  of  which  had  besides  the  dungeons 
a  salaried  torturer  and  executioner.  Think 
of  the  systematic  tortures  of  the  centuries, 
of  the  witchcraft  mania  and  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion. Think  of  the  burnings  in  Smith- 
field  and  in  every  great  city  of  Europe. 
Think  of 

"  Truth  for  ever  on  the  scaffold, 
Wrong  for  ever  on  the  throne." 

Freedom  of  speech,  even  of  thought,  were 
everywhere  crimes :  how,  then,  did  the  love 
of  truth  survive  as  an  ideal  of  to-day  ?  To 
escape  these  horrors,  the  gentle,  the  good, 
the  learned,  and  the  peaceful  had  to  seek 
refuge  in  monasteries  and  nunneries,  while 
by  means  of  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy  the 
Church,  as  Gait  on  tells  us,  "  by  a  policy 
singularly  unwise  and  suicidal,  brutalised 
the  breed  of  our  forefathers." 

Here  was  the  actual  education  of  the 
world  as  man  rose  from  barbarism  to  civil- 
isation, and  it  was  accompanied  by  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  retrograde  selection  by  the 
cruel  punishments,  confinement  in  dun- 
geons, or  torture  and  death  of  those  who 
opposed  the  rulers,  and  by  the  survival  of 
the  worst  tools  of  the  lords  and  tyrants. 
114 


xv]      Heredity  and  Environment 

Ought  we  not  to  be  thankful  that  such 
education  and  custom,  the  varied  influences 
of  such  an  environment,  were  not  hereditary  ? 
And  is  not  the  fact  that  the  whole  world 
has  not  become  utterly  degraded,  and  that 
anything  good  remains  in  our  cruelly 
oppressed  human  nature,  an  overwhelming 
proof  that  such  influences  are  not  here- 
ditary ? 

When  we  remember  that  many  of  these 
degrading  laws  and  customs,  oppressions, 
and  punishments  have  extended  down  to 
our  own  times ;  that  the  terrible  slave- 
trade  and  the  equally  terrible  slavery  have 
only  been  abolished  within  the  memory  of 
many  of  us ;  and  that  the  system  of  wage- 
slavery,  the  distinction  of  classes,  the  gross 
inequality  of  the  law,  the  overwork  of  our 
labouring  millions,  the  immoral  luxury  and 
idleness  of  our  upper-class  thousands,  while 
far  more  thousands  die  annually  of  want  of 
the  bare  necessaries  of  life;  that  millions 
have  their  lives  shortened  by  easily  pre- 
ventable causes,  while  other  millions  pass 
their  whole  lives  in  continuous  and  almost 
inhuman  labour  in  order  to  provide  means 
for  the  enjoyments  and  pernicious  luxuries 
of  the  rich — we  must  be  amazed  at  the  fact 
that  there  is  nevertheless  so  much  real 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

goodness,  real  humanity,  among  us  as  cer- 
tainly exists,  in  spite  of  all  the  degrading 
influences  that  I  have  been  compelled  here 
to  enumerate. 

To  myself,  there  seems  only  one  ex- 
planation of  the  very  remarkable  and  almost 
incredible  result  just  stated.  It  is,  that  the 
Divine  nature  in  us — that  portion  of  our 
higher  nature  which  raises  us  above  the 
brutes,  and  the  influx  of  which  makes  us 
men — cannot  be  lost,  cannot  even  be  per- 
manently deteriorated  by  conditions  how- 
ever adverse,  by  training  however  senseless 
and  bad.  It  ever  remains  in  us,  the  central 
and  essential  portion  of  our  human  nature, 
ready  to  respond  to  every  favourable  oppor- 
tunity that  arises,  to  grasp  and  hold  firm 
every  fragment  of  high  thought  or  noble 
action  that  has  been  brought  to  its  notice, 
to  oppose  even  to  the  death  every  falsehood 
in  teaching,  every  tyranny  in  action.  The 
ethics  of  Plato  and  of  the  great  moralists  of 
the  Ciceronian  epoch,  together  with  those 
of  Jesus  and  of  His  disciples  and  follow- 
ers, kept  alive  the  sacred  flame  of  pure 
humanity,  and  their  preservation  consti- 
tutes perhaps  the  greatest  service  the 
monastic  system  rendered  to  the  human 
race.  This  service  is  finely  expressed  by  an 

116 


xv]      Heredity  and  Environment 

almost  unknown  poet,  J.  H.  Dell,  in  the 
prefatory  to  his  volume,  The  Dawning  Grey. 
Never  has  our  indebtedness  to  the  classical 
writers  been  more  powerfully  insisted  on 
than  in  the  following  lines  : — 

"  Hear  ye  not  the  measured  footfalls  echoing  solemn 

and  sublime, 
From  the  groves  of  Academus  down  the  avenues 

of  Time ; 
See'st  thou  not  the  giant  figures  of  the  Sages  of 

the  Past, 
Through    the   darken'd   long   perspective   on   the 

living  foreground  cast ; 
Feel'st  thou  not  the  thrilling  rhythm  of  the  grand 

old  Grecian  line, 
Pulsing  to  the  march  of   Progress,  cadencing  her 

hymn  divine, 
All  the  forces  of  the  present  by  the  subtle  sparks 

controlled, 
Of  the  quickening  Grecian  fire,  of  the  mighty  Lights 

of  old. 

"  Through  the  dark  and  desolation  of  the  centuries 
between, 

Still  '  The  Porch's  '  glories  glimmer,  still  '  The  Gar- 
den's '  wreaths  are  green. 

Still  the  Zeno,  still  the   Plato,  still  the   Pyrrho 
points  the  page, 

Still  the  Philip  fears  the  pebble— still  Melitus  dreads 
the  Sage, 

Still  the  Dionysius  trembles  at  the  stylus  of  the 
age. 

117 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

Still  the  dauntless  ranks  of   Freedom   kindle  to 

Tyrtaeus'  song ; 
Still  they  bear  aloft  the  symbol — bear  the  glorious 

torch  along."* 

If  the  Christian  Church  had  done  nothing 
for  us  but  preserve  in  its  monasteries  and 
abbeys  the  finest  examples  of  classic  litera- 
ture that  have  come  down  to  us,  and  given 
us  those  glories  of  Gothic  architecture  which 
seem  to  express  in  stone  the  grandeur  and 
sublimity,  the  peacefulness  and  the  beauty 
of  a  pure  religion,  it  would,  notwithstanding 
its  many  defects,  its  cruelty  and  oppression, 
its  opposition  to  the  study  of  nature  and 
to  freedom  of  thought,  have  fully  justified 
its  existence  as  helping  us  to  realise  what- 
ever more  advanced  and  purer  civilisation 
the  immediate  future  may  have  in  store 
for  us. 

Some  Light  on  the  Problem  of  Evil 

Before  passing  on  to  another  branch  of 
my  subject  I  feel  it  necessary  to  make  a  few 
suggestions  in  reply  to  the  objection  that 
will  certainly  and  very  properly  be  made, 
as  to  why,  if  our  higher  human  nature  is  in 
its  essence  Divine,  it  has  suffered  such  long 
and  terrible  eclipses — why  has  the  lower 

*  See  Note  on  page  124. 
118 


xv]      Heredity  and  Environment 

so  often  and  for  so  long  prevailed  over 
the  higher  ?  This  is,  of  course,  one  of  the 
many  forms  of  the  old  problem  of  the  origin 
of  evil,  which  is  no  doubt  insoluble  by  us. 
But  as  it  is  a  fairly  well-defined  and  limited 
portion  of  that  problem  it  may  be  possible 
to  obtain  some  idea  of  a  possible  solution, 
and  as  such  an  one  has  occurred  to  myself 
during  the  composition  of  the  present 
volume,  I  will  give  it  as  briefly  as  possible 
in  the  hope  that  it  may  interest  some  of 
my  readers. 

In  my  recent  works,  Man's  Place  in  the 
Universe  and  The  World  of  Life,  the  con- 
clusion was  forced  upon  me,  that  the  scheme 
of  the  development  of  the  universe  of  stars 
and  nebulae  with  which  we  are  acquainted, 
and  especially  of  our  sun  and  solar  system, 
was  such  as  to  furnish  the  exact  conditions 
on  our  earth,  and  there  only,  which  should 
allow  of  the  origin  and  evolution  of  the 
organic  world  culminating  in  man.  Yet 
further,  that  the  conditions  should  be  such 
as  to  produce  the  maximum  of  diversity 
both  of  inorganic  and  organic  products  use- 
ful to  man,  and  such  as  would  aid  in  the 
development  of  the  greatest  possible  diver- 
sity of  character  and  especially  of  his  higher 
mental  and  moral  nature.  What  I  have 
119 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

here  termed  the  Divine  influx,  which  at 
some  definite  epoch  in  his  evolution  at  once 
raised  man  above  the  rest  of  the  animals, 
creating  as  it  were  a  new  being  with  a 
continuous  spiritual  existence  in  a  world  or 
worlds  where  eternal  progress  was  possible 
for  him.  To  prepare  him  for  this  progress 
with  ever-increasing  diversity,  faculties  of 
enormous  range  were  required,  and  these 
needed  development  in  every  direction 
which  earthly  conditions  rendered  possible. 
In  order  that  this  extreme  diversity  of 
character  should  be  brought  about,  a  great 
space  of  time,  as  measured  by  successive 
generations,  was  necessary,  though  utterly 
insignificant  as  compared  with  the  preceding 
duration  of  organic  life  on  the  earth,  and 
still  more  insignificant  as  compared  with 
the  spirit-life  to  succeed  it.  It  is  for  this 
purpose,  perhaps,  that  languages  become  so 
rapidly  diverse  and  mutually  unintelligible 
after  a  moderate  period  of  isolation,  bind- 
ing together  small  or  moderate  communities 
in  distinct  tribes  or  nations,  which  each 
develop  in  their  own  way  under  the  influ- 
ence of  special  physical  surroundings  and 
originate  peculiarities  of  habits,  customs, 
and  modes  of  thought.  Antagonisms  soon 
arise  between  adjacent  tribes,  leading  each 

120 


xv]      Heredity  and  Environment 

to  protect  itself  against  others  by  means  of 
chiefs  and  some  quasi-military  combinations. 
This  requires  organisation  and  foresight,  and 
after  a  time  the  most  powerful  conquers 
the  weaker,  they  intermingle,  and  still 
greater  diversity  arises.  By  this  constant 
struggle  the  less  advanced  suffer  most,  and 
the  race  as  a  whole  takes  a  step  forward 
in  the  march  of  civilisation. 

We  see  the  best  example  of  this  mode 
of  progress  by  antagonism  in  the  small 
States  of  Ancient  Greece,  where  each  little 
kingdom  developed  its  peculiar  form  of  art, 
of  government,  and  of  civilisation,  which  it 
transferred  to  all  parts  of  Europe  ;  and 
after  two  thousand  years  of  degradation  by 
Roman  and  Turkish  conquest,  its  language 
still  remains  but  little  altered,  while  its 
ancient  literature  and  art  are  still  un- 
surpassed. In  like  manner  Rome  brought 
law,  literature,  and  military  discipline  to  an 
equally  high  level ;  and  it  too  sank  into  a 
state  of  ruin  and  degradation,  while  its 
literature  and  its  law  continued  to  illumi- 
nate the  civilised  world  during  its  long 
struggle  towards  freedom.  Wherever  con- 
ditions were  favourable  to  progress  in  art 
or  science,  time  was  needed  for  its  full 
growth  and  development;  while  perpetual 

121 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

war  necessitated  organisation  and  training 
against  conquest  or  destruction.  Even  the 
cruelties  and  massacres  by  despotic  rulers 
excited  at  last  the  uprising  of  the  op- 
pressed, and  so  developed  the  nobler  attri- 
butes of  patriotism,  courage,  and  love  of 
freedom.  In  the  very  worst  of  times  there 
was  an  undercurrent  of  peaceful  labour, 
art,  and  learning,  slowly  moulding  nations 
towards  a  higher  state  of  civilisation. 

The  point  of  view  now  suggested  will 
perhaps  be  rendered  somewhat  more  in- 
telligible if  we  apply  it  to  the  nineteenth 
century,  of  which  I  have  written  in  such 
condemnatory  terms.  The  preceding  eigh- 
teenth century  was  undoubtedly  a  some- 
what stationary  epoch,  of  a  rather  common- 
place character  alike  in  literature,  in  art,  in 
science,  and  in  social  life.  Its  vices  also 
were  low,  its  government  bad,  its  system 
of  punishments  cruel,  and  its  recognition  of 
slavery  degrading.  It  was  a  kind  of  "  dark 
age "  between  the  literary  and  national 
brilliance  of  the  Elizabethan  age  and  the 
wonderful  scientific  and  industrial  advance 
of  the  Victorian  age. 

But  this  latter  period  was  also  a  period 
of  a  great  uprising  of  the  specially  human 
virtues  of  justice,  of  pity,  of  the  love  of 

122 


xv]      Heredity  and  Environment 

freedom,  and  of  the  importance  of  educa- 
tion ;  and  though  the  rapid  increase  of 
wealth  through  the  utilisation  of  natural 
forces  led  to  all  the  evils  due  to  the  un- 
checked growth  of  individual  riches  and 
power,  yet  these  very  evils  in  all  their 
intensity  and  horror  were  perhaps  neces- 
sary to  excite  in  a  sufficient  number  of 
minds  the  determination  to  get  rid  of  them. 
Time  was  also  required  for  the  workers  to 
learn  their  own  power,  and,  very  gradually, 
to  learn  how  to  use  it.  The  rick-burning 
and  machine-breaking  of  the  early  part  of 
the  century  have  been  succeeded  by  com- 
bination and  strikes  ;  step  by  step  political 
power  has  been  gained  by  the  masses  ;  but 
only  now,  in  the  twentieth  century,  are 
they  beginning  to  learn  how  to  use  their 
strength  in  an  effective  manner.  There  are, 
however,  indications  that  the  whole  march 
of  progress  has  been  dangerously  rapid, 
and  it  might  have  been  safer  if  the  great 
increases  of  knowledge  and  the  vast  accumu- 
lations of  wealth  had  been  spread  over  two 
centuries  instead  of  one.  In  that  case  our 
higher  nature  might  have  been  able  to  keep 
pace  with  the  growing  evils  of  superfluous 
wealth  and  increasing  luxury,  and  it  might 
have  been  possible  to  put  a  check  upon 
123 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

them   before   they  had   attained   the   full 
power  for  evil  they  now  possess. 

Nevertheless,  the  omens  for  the  future 
are  good.  The  great  body  of  the  more 
intelligent  workers  are  determined  to  have 
JUSTICE.  They  insist  upon  the  abolition  of 
monopolies  of  the  forces  of  nature,  and  upon 
the  gradual  admission  of  all  to  equal  oppor- 
tunities for  labour  by  free  access  to  their 
native  soil.  Thus  may  be  initiated  the 
birth  of  a  new  era  of  peaceful  reform  and 
moral  advancement. 

NOTE. — As  many  of  my  readers  may  not  under- 
stand the  allusions  in  the  second  verse  of  Mr.  Dell's 
poem  (pp.  117-118),  I  append  the  explanation : 

"  The  Porch,"  the  place  where  the  Stoic  philo- 
sophers taught — The  Painted  Porch  in  Athens. 

"  The  Garden,"  scene  of  Plato's  and  Socrates' 
teaching. 

Zeno  was  the  founder  of  the  Stoic  philosophy: 

Pyrrho  was  the  founder  of  the  Sceptic  school. 

Philip  of  Macedon  lost  an  eye  at  the  siege  of 
Methone  by  a  slinger's  pebble. 

Melitus  was  one  of  the  disputants  with  Socrates, 
and  was  always  vanquished  by  him. 

Dionysius,  the  Tyrant  of  Syracuse,  was  also 
a  Poet  and  was  a  candidate  for  the  prize  at  the 
Olympic  games,  but  was  conquered  and  therefore 
feared  the  more  skilful  "  stylus  "  (pen)  of  the  victors. 

Tyrtasus,  a  lame  schoolmaster  of  Athens,  inspired 
the  Lacedaemonians  by  his  patriotic  war-songst  and 
thus  contributed  largely  to  their  victories: 
124 


CHAPTER  XVI 

MORAL  PROGRESS  THROUGH  A  NEW  FORM 
OF  SELECTION 

MANY  readers,  and  some  writers  of  books 
on  organic  evolution,  seem  quite  unaware 
that  Darwin  established  two  modes  of 
selection,  both  alike  "natural"  but  acting 
in  different  ways  and  producing  somewhat 
different  results.  He  termed  the  second 
mode  "  sexual  selection,"  and  in  his  Origin 
of  Species  he  briefly  describes  it  as  con- 
sisting in  the  fighting  of  males  for  the 
possession  of  females,  which  undoubtedly 
occurs  in  numbers  of  the  higher  vertebrates 
and  also  in  insects. 

But  he  also  includes  under  sexual  selec- 
tion another  mode  of  rivalry  by  the  dis- 
play of  the  special  male  ornaments  of 
many  birds,  and  the  choice  of  the  more 
ornamental  by  the  females.  To  this  latter 
phase  he  devotes  nearly  half  his  volume 
on  The  Descent  of  Man,  and  on  Selection  in 
Relation  to  Sex.  Selection  by  the  fighting 
of  males  has  led  to  the  development  of  the 
"5 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

stag's  antlers,  the  boar's  tusks,  and  the 
lion's  mane  serving  as  a  shield.  These 
combats  rarely  lead  to  the  death  of  the 
vanquished,  but  to  a  larger  number  of  off- 
spring for  the  victor ;  and  this  leads  to  the 
improvement  of  the  race  by  keeping  up 
its  strength,  vigour,  and  fighting  power. 

The  other  form  of  selection,  by  the  dis- 
play of  ornaments  by  male  birds  and  the 
supposed  continuous  development  of  those 
ornaments  by  the  appreciative  choice  of  the 
females,  I  believe  to  be  imaginary.  I  have 
discussed  this  subject  in  many  of  my  books, 
and  my  views  are  now  generally  adopted 
by  evolutionists.  The  fact  that  the  colours 
of  male  insects,  especially  butterflies,  are 
almost  exactly  parallel  to  those  of  birds, 
first  led  me  to  this  conclusion,  because  we 
can  hardly  suppose  insects  to  be  endowed 
with  any  sesthetic  sense,  even  if  they  really 
see  colour  at  all,  which,  in  my  last  book,  I 
have  given  strong  reasons  for  doubting. 

But  in  the  human  race  the  conditions 
are  altogether  different ;  for  while,  as  I 
have  shown  in  Chapter  XIV.,  the  kind  of 
natural  selection  which  through  all  the  ages 
had  moulded  the  infinitely  varied  animal 
forms  into  harmony  with  their  environment, 
ceased  to  act  upon  man's  body  and  only 
126 


Progress  Through  Selection 

for  a  limited  time  upon  his  lower  mental 
faculties,  sexual  selection  tended  to  act  if 
at  all  prejudicially,  through  polygamy, 
prostitution,  and  slavery,  though  it  pos- 
sesses the  potentiality  of  acting  in  the 
future  so  as  to  ensure  Intellectual  and 
Moral  Progress,  and  thus  elevate  the  race 
to  whatever  degree  of  civilisation  and  well- 
being  it  is  capable  of  reaching  in  earth-life. 

Eugenics,  or  Race  Improvement  through 
Marriage 

The  total  cessation  of  the  action  of 
natural  selection  as  a  cause  of  improvement 
in  our  race,  either  physical  or  mental,  led 
to  the  proposal  of  the  late  Sir  F.  Galton  to 
establish  a  new  science,  which  he  termed 
Eugenics.  A  society  has  been  formed,  and 
much  is  being  written  about  checking 
degeneration  and  elevating  the  race  to  a 
higher  level  by  its  means.  Sir  F.  Galton's 
own  proposals  were  limited  to  giving  prizes 
or  endowments  for  the  marriage  of  persons 
of  high  character,  both  physical,  mental, 
and  moral,  to  be  determined  by  some  form 
of  inquiry  or  examination.  This  may, 
perhaps,  not  do  much  harm,  but  it  would 
certainly  do  very  little  good.  Its  range  of 
127 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

action  would  be  extremely  limited,  and  so 
far  as  it  induced  any  couples  to  marry 
each  other  for  the  pecuniary  reward,  it 
would  be  absolutely  immoral  in  its  nature, 
and  probably  result  in  no  perceptible 
improvement  of  the  race. 

But  there  is  great  danger  in  such  a 
process  of  artificial  selection  by  experts, 
who  would  certainly  soon  adopt  methods 
very  different  from  those  of  the  founder. 
We  have  already  had  proposals  made  for 
the  "  segregation  of  the  Feeble-Minded," 
while  the  "  sterilization  of  the  unfit "  and 
of  some  classes  of  criminals  is  already 
being  discussed.  This  might  soon  be  ex- 
tended to  the  destruction  of  deformed 
infants,  as  was  actually  proposed  by  the 
late  Grant  Allen ;  while  Mr.  Hiram  M. 
Stanley,  hi  a  work  on  Our  Civilisation  and 
the  Marriage  Problem,  proposed  more 
far-reaching  measures.  He  says :  "  The 
drunkard,  the  criminal,  the  diseased,  the 
morally  weak,  should  never  come  into 
society.  Not  reform,  but  prevention 
should  be  the  cry."  And  he  hints  at  the 
methods  he  would  adopt,  in  the  follow- 
ing passages :  "In  the  true  golden  age, 
which  lies  not  behind  but  before  us,  the 
privilege  of  parentage  will  be  esteemed 
128 


Progress  Through  Selection 

an  honour  for  the  comparatively  few,  and 
no  child  will  be  born  who  is  not  only  sound 
in  body  and  mind,  but  also  above  the 
average  as  to  natural  ability  and  moral 
force."  And  he  concludes :  "  The  most 
important  matter  in  society,  the  inherent 
quality  of  the  members  of  which  it  is 
composed,  should  be  regulated  by  trained 
specialists." 

Of  course,  our  modern  eugenists  will 
disclaim  any  wish  to  adopt  such  measures 
as  are  here  hinted  at,  which  are  in  every 
way  dangerous  and  detestable.  But  I 
protest  strenuously  against  any  direct  in- 
terference with  the  freedom  of  marriage, 
which,  as  I  shall  show,  is  not  only  to- 
tally unnecessary,  but  would  be  a  much 
greater  source  of  danger  to  morals  and 
to  the  well-being  of  humanity  than  the 
mere  temporary  evils  it  seeks  to  cure. 
I  trust  that  all  my  readers  will  oppose 
any  legislation  on  this  subject  by  a  chance 
body  of  elected  persons  who  are  totally 
unfitted  to  deal  with  far  less  complex 
problems  than  this  one,  and  as  to  which 
they  are  sure  to  bungle  disastrously. 

It  is  in  the  highest  degree  presump- 
tuous and  irrational  to  attempt  to  deal  by 
compulsory  enactments  with  the  most  vital 

j  129 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

and  most  sacred  of  all  human  relations, 
regardless  of  the  fact  that  our  present 
phase  of  social  development  is  not  only 
extremely  imperfect,  but,  as  I  have  al- 
ready shown,  vicious  and  rotten  at  the 
core.  How  can  it  be  possible  to  deter- 
mine by  legislation  those  relations  of  the 
sexes  which  shall  be  best  alike  for  indi- 
viduals and  for  the  race,  in  a  society  in 
which  a  large  proportion  of  our  women 
are  forced  to  work  long  hours  daily  for 
the  barest  subsistence,  with  an  almost 
total  absence  of  the  rational  pleasures  of 
life,  for  the  want  of  which  thousands  are 
driven  into  wholly  uncongenial  marriages 
in  order  to  secure  some  amount  of  per- 
sonal independence  or  physical  well-being  ? 
Let  anyone  consider,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  lives  of  the  wealthy  as  portrayed  in 
the  society  newspapers  of  the  day,  with 
their  endless  round  of  pleasure  and  luxury, 
their  almost  inconceivable  wastefulness  and 
extravagance,  indicated  by  the  cost  of 
female  dress  and  the  fact  of  a  thousand 
pounds  or  more  being  expended  on  the 
flowers  for  a  single  entertainment.  On 
the  other  hand,  let  him  contemplate  the 
awful  lives  of  millions  of  workers,  so  miser- 
ably paid  and  with  such  uncertainty  of 
130 


xvi]    Progress  Through  Selection 

work  that  many  thousands  of  the  women 
and  young  girls  are  driven  on  the  streets 
as  the  only  means  of  breaking  the  monot- 
ony of  their  unceasing  labour  and  obtain- 
ing some  taste  of  the  enjoyments  of  life 
at  whatever  cost ;  and  then  ask  himself  if 
the  Legislature  which  cannot  remedy  this 
state  of  things  should  venture  to  meddle 
with  the  great  problems  of  marriage  and 
the  sanctities  of  family  life.  Is  it  not 
a  hideous  mockery  that  the  successive 
Governments  which  for  forty  years  have 
seen  the  people  they  profess  to  govern 
so  driven  to  despair  by  the  vile  conditions 
of-  their  existence  that  in  an  ever  larger 
and  larger  proportion  they  seek  death  by 
suicide  as  their  only  means  of  escape — that 
Governments  which  have  done  nothing 
to  put  an  end  to  this  continuous  horror  of 
starvation  and  suicide,  should  be  thought 
capable  of  remedying  some  of  its  more 
terrible  results,  while  leaving  its  causes 
absolutely  untouched  ? 

It  is  my  firm  conviction,  for  reasons 
I  shall  give  farther  on,  that,  when  we 
have  cleansed  the  Augean  stable  of  our 
present  social  organisation,  and  have  made 
such  arrangements  that  all  shall  contri- 
bute their  share  either  of  physical  or 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

mental  labour,  and  that  every  one  shall 
obtain  the  full  and  equal  reward  for  their 
work,  the  future  progress  of  the  race  will 
be  rendered  certain  by  the  fuller  develop- 
ment of  its  higher  nature  acted  on  by  a 
special  form  of  selection  which  will  then 
come  into  play. 

When  men  and  women  are,  for  the 
first  time  in  the  course  of  civilisation, 
alike  free  to  follow  their  best  impulses ; 
when  idleness  and  vicious  or  hurtful  luxury 
on  the  one  hand,  oppressive  labour  and  the 
dread  of  starvation  on  the  other,  are  alike 
unknown  ;  when  all  receive  the  best  and 
broadest  education  that  the  state  of  civil- 
isation and  knowledge  will  admit ;  when 
the  standard  of  public  opinion  is  set  by 
the  wisest  and  the  best  among  us,  and 
that  standard  is  systematically  inculcated 
on  the  young  ;  then  we  shall  find  that 
a  system  of  truly  natural  selection  will 
come  spontaneously  into  action  which  will 
steadily  tend  to  eliminate  the  lower,  the 
less  developed,  or  in  any  way  defective 
types  of  men,  and  will  thus  continuously 
raise  the  physicM,  moral,  and  intellectual 
standard  of  the  race.  The  exact  mode  in 
which  this  selection  will  operate  will  now 
be  briefly  explained. 
132 


Progress  Through  Selection 


Free  Selection  in  Marriage 

It  will  be  generally  admitted  that 
although  many  women  now  remain  un- 
married from  necessity  rather  than  from 
choice,  there  are  always  considerable 
numbers  who  feel  no  strong  impulse  to 
marriage,  and  accept  husbands  to  secure 
subsistence  and  a  home  of  their  own 
rathfer  than  from  personal  affection  or 
strong  sexual  emotion.  In  a  state  of 
society  in  which  all  women  were  economic- 
ally independent,  were  all  fully  occupied 
with  public  duties  and  social  or  intellec- 
tual pleasures,  and  had  nothing  to  gain 
by  marriage  as  regards  material  well- 
being  or  social  position,  it  is  highly  prob- 
able that  the  numbers  of  the  unmarried 
from  choice  would  increase.  It  would 
probably  come  to  be  considered  a  degrada- 
tion for  any  woman  to  marry  a  man  whom 
she  could  not  love  and  esteem,  and  this 
reason  would  tend  at  least  to  delay 
marriage  till  a  worthy  and  sympathetic 
partner  was  encountered. 

In  man,  on  the  other  hand,  the  passion 

of  love  is  more  general  and  usually  stronger  ; 

and  in  such  a  society  as  here  postulated 

there  would  be  no  way  of  gratifying  this 

133 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

passion  but  by  marriage.  Every  woman, 
therefore,  would  be  likely  to  receive  offers, 
and  a  powerful  selective  agency  would 
rest  with  the  female  sex.  Under  the 
system  of  education  and  public  opinion 
here  supposed,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
how  this  selection  would  be  exercised.  The 
idle  or  the  utterly  selfish  would  be  almost 
universally  rejected  ;  the  chronically  dis- 
eased or  the  weak  in  intellect  would  also 
usually  remain  unmarried,  at  least  till 
an  advanced  period  of  life ;  while  those 
who  showed  any  tendency  to  insanity 
or  exhibited  any  congenital  deformity 
would  also  be  rejected  by  the  younger 
women,  because  it  would  be  considered  an 
offence  against  society  to  be  the  means 
of  perpetuating  any  such  diseases  or 
imperfections. 

We  must  also  take  account  of  a  special 
factor,  hitherto  almost  unnoticed,  which 
would  tend  to  intensify  the  selection  thus 
exercised.  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to 
statisticians  that  although  females  are  in 
excess  in  almost  all  civilised  popula- 
tions, yet  this  is  not  due  to  a  law  of 
Nature  ;  for  with  us,  and  I  believe  in  all 
parts  of  the  Continent,  more  males  than 
females  are  born  to  an  amount  of  about 
134 


xvi]     Progress  Through  Selection 

3i  to  4  per  cent.  But  between  the  ages 
of  five  and  thirty-five  there  were,  in  1910, 
4*225  deaths  of  males  from  accident  or 
violence  and  only  1-300  of  females,  show- 
ing an  excess  of  male  deaths  of  2*925  in 
one  year  ;  and  for  many  years  the  num- 
bers of  this  class  of  deaths  have  not 
varied  much,  the  excess  of  preventable 
deaths  of  males  at  those  ages  being  very 
nearly  3,000  annually.  This  excess  is  no 
doubt  due  to  boys  and  young  men  being 
more  exposed,  both  in  play  and  work,  to 
various  kinds  of  accidents  than  are  women, 
and  this  brings  about  the  constant  excess 
of  females  in  what  may  be  termed  normal 
civilised  populations. 

In  1901  it  was  about  a  million ; 
while  fifty  years  earlier,  when  the  popu- 
lation was  about  half,  it  was  only 
359,000,  or  considerably  less  than  half 
the  present  proportion.  This  is  what 
we  should  expect  from  the  constant 
increase  of  accidents  and  of  emigration, 
the  effects  of  both  of  which  fall  most 
upon  males. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  larger 
number  of  women  in  our  population  to- 
day is  not  a  natural  phenomenon,  but  is 
almost  wholly  the  result  of  our  own  man- 
135 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

made  social  environment.  When  the  lives 
of  all  our  citizens  are  accounted  of  equal 
value  to  the  community,  irrespective  of 
class  or  of  wealth,  a  much  smaller  number 
will  be  allowed  to  suffer  from  such  pre- 
ventable causes ;  while,  as  our  colonies 
fill  up  with  a  normal  population,  and  the 
enormous  areas  of  uncultivated  or  half- 
cultivated  land  at  home  are  thrown  open 
to  our  own  people  on  the  most  favourable 
terms,  the  great  tide  of  emigration  will  be 
diminished  and  will  then  cease  to  affect 
the  proportion  of  the  sexes.  The  result 
of  these  various  causes,  now  all  tending  to 
increase  the  numbers  of  the  female  popu- 
lation, will,  in  a  rational  and  just  system 
of  society,  of  which  we  may  hope  soon 
to  see  the  commencement,  act  in  a  con- 
trary direction,  and  will  in  a  few  genera- 
tions bring  the  sexes  first  to  an  equality, 
and  later  on  to  a  majority  of  males. 

There  are  some,  no  doubt,  who  will 
object  that  even  when  women  have  a  free 
choice,  owing  to  improved  economic  con- 
ditions, they  will  not  choose  wisely  so  as 
to  advance  the  race.  But  no  one  has  the 
right  to  make  such  a  statement  without 
adducing  very  strong  evidence  in  support 
of  it.  We  have  for  generations  degraded 
136 


Progress  Through  Selection 

women  in  every  possible  way  ;  but  we  now 
know  that  such  degradation  is  not  heredi- 
tary, and  therefore  not  permanent.  The  great 
philosopher  and  seer,  Swedenborg,  declared 
that  whereas  men  loved  justice,  wisdom 
and  power  for  their  own  sakes,  women 
loved  them  as  seen  in  the  characters  of 
men.  It  is  generally  admitted  that  there 
is  truth  in  this  observation  ;  but  there  is 
surely  still  more  truth  in  the  converse, 
that  they  do  not  admire  those  men  who  are 
palpably  unjust,  stupid,  or  weak,  and  still 
less  those  who  are  distorted,  diseased,  or 
grossly  vicious,  though  under  present  con- 
ditions they  are  often  driven  to  marry 
them.  It  may  be  taken  as  certain,  there- 
fore, that  when  women  are  economically  and 
socially  free  to  choose,  numbers  of  the  worst 
men  among  all  classes  who  now  readily  ob- 
tain wives  will  be  almost  universally  rejected. 
Now,  this  mode  of  improvement  by 
elimination  of  the  less  desirable  has  many 
advantages  over  that  of  securing  early 
marriages  of  the  more  admired  ;  for  what 
we  most  require  is  to  improve  the  average 
of  our  population  by  rejecting  its  lower  types 
rather  than  by  raising  the  advanced  types 
a  little  higher.  Great  and  good  men  are 
always  produced  in  sufficient  numbers  and 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

have  always  been  so  produced  in  every 
phase  of  civilisation.  We  do  not  need 
more  of  these  so  much  as  we  want  a 
diminution  of  the  weaker  and  less  advanced 
types.  This  weeding-out  process  has  been 
the  method  of  natural  selection,  by  which 
the  whole  of  the  glorious  vegetable  and 
animal  kingdoms  have  been  developed  and 
advanced.  The  survival  of  the  fittest  is 
really  the  extinction  of  the  unfit ;  and  it 
is  the  one  brilliant  ray  of  hope  for  hu- 
manity that,  just  as  we  advance  in  the 
reform  of  our  present  cruel  and  disastrous 
social  system,  we  shall  set  free  a  power  of 
selection  in  marriage  that  will  steadily  and 
certainly  improve  the  character,  as  well 
as  the  strength  and  the  beauty,  of  our 
race. 

Social  Reform  and  Over-population 

One  of  the  most  general  and  appar- 
ently the  strongest  of  the  objections  to 
any  thorough  schemes  of  social  reform, 
and  especially  to  those  that  will  abolish 
want  and  the  constant  dread  of  starva- 
tion is  that,  in  any  society  in  which  this 
is  done  early  marriages  will  be  much 
more  numerous ;  there  will  be  no  pruden- 
tial checks  to  large  families ;  and  in  a  few 
138 


Progress  Through  Selection 

generations,  as  Malthus  argued,  popula- 
tions will  increase  beyond  the  means  of 
subsistence.  Then  will  commence  a  con- 
tinual decrease  of  well-being,  culminating 
in  universal  poverty,  worse  than  any  that 
now  exists,  because  it  will  be  universal. 
The  following  quotation  from  an  eminent 
American  writer  shows  that  this  fear  has 
really  been  felt : 

"  If  it  be  true  that  reason  must  direct  the  course 
of  human  evolution,  and  if  it  be  also  true  that  selec- 
tion of  the  fittest  is  the  only  method  available  for 
that  purpose  ;  then,  if  we  are  to  have  any  race- 
improvement  at  all,  the  dreadful  law  of  destruction 
of  the  weak  and  helpless  must,  with  Spartan  firmness, 
be  carried  out  voluntarily  and  deliberately.  Against 
such  a  course  all  that  is  best  in  us  revolts."  * 

A  more  recent  writer,  Dr.  W.  M. 
Flinders  Petrie,  the  well-known  Egyptian 
explorer,  has  put  forward  similar  views  in 
a  tentative  manner,  but  clearly  showing 
what  he  thinks  our  present  state  of  society 
requires.  Of  the  compensation  to  work- 
men for  accident  he  says : 

"  The  immediate  effect  upon  character  is  to  save 
the  careless,  thoughtless,  and  incompetent  from  the 
results  of  their  faults ;  this  at  once  reduces  largely 

*  Professor  Joseph  I<e  Coute,  iu  The  Monist,  Vol.  L, 
P-  334- 

139 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  CCH. 

the   weeding   and   educational   effects   of   the   bad 
qualities." 

And   of   old-age    pensions   his   concluding 
remark  is  : 

"  Nature  knows  of  no  right  to  maintenance,  but 
only  the  necessity  of  getting  rid  of  these  who  need  it 
by  mending  or  ending  them." 

Again,  as  to  the  huge  waste  of  infant 
life  now  going  on,  which  he  admits  is 
preventable  and  might  be  saved,  he  re- 
marks : 

"  We  must  agree  that  it  would  be  of  the  lower, 
or  lowest  type  of  careless,  thriftless,  dirty,  and  in- 
capable families  that  the  increase  would  be  obtained. 
Is  it  worth  while  to  dilute  our  increase  of  population 
by  10  per  cent,  more  of  the  more  inferior  kind  ?  " 

And  he  concludes  thus: 

"  This  movement  is  doing  away  with  one  of  the 
few  remains  of  natural  weeding  out  of  the  unfit  that 
our  civilisation  has  left  us.  And  it  will  certainly 
cause  more  misery  than  happiness  in  the  course  of  a 
century."  * 

The  whole  book  is  full  of  such  state- 
ments as  the  above,  for  which  neither 
facts  nor  arguments  are  given.  It  is 
assumed  throughout  that  the  failures  in 
our  modern  society  are  so  through  their 

*  Janus  in  Modern  Life.  By  W.  M.  Flinders  Petrie 
D.CJ,.,  F.R.S. 

140 


Progress  Through  Selection 

own  fault  —  they  are  "  wastrels  "  —  and 
deserve  neither  pity  nor  help.  He  knows 
nothing  apparently  of  Dr.  Barnardo's  work 
in  rescuing  these  "  wastrel "  children  from 
the  gutter  and  the  workhouse,  treating 
them  well  and  kindly,  training  them  in 
work,  and  sending  many  thousands  to 
Canada.  A  record  of  their  subsequent  life 
was  kept,  and  it  was  found  that  very  few 
failed  to  do  well,  while  a  very  large  majority 
became  valuable  citizens  in  their  new 
home.  On  the  whole,  they  were  in  no  way 
inferior  to  the  average  of  emigrants  who 
go  at  their  own  expense,  and  who  are 
admitted  to  be  among  the  best  of  our 
workers. 

None  of  the  writers  of  the  class  here 
quoted  seem  to  have  made  themselves 
acquainted  with  the  researches  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  Sir  F.  Gait  on,  and  others,  as  to 
the  natural  laws  which  determine  the  rate 
of  increase  of  population  when  those  laws 
are  allowed  to  operate  freely  under  rational 
and  moral  social  conditions.  A  short  state- 
ment of  these  laws  will  therefore  be  given. 

In  a  remarkable  essay,  first  published 
in  1852,  H.  Spencer,  with  his  usual  philo- 
sophical insight,  examined  the  facts  of 
reproduction  and  population  throughout 
141 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

the  whole  of  the  animal  kingdom,  and 
showed  that  the  duration  of  the  individual 
life  and  the  increase  of  the  race  varied 
inversely,  those  groups  which  have  the 
simplest  organisation  and  the  shortest  lives 
producing  the  greatest  number  of  off- 
spring ;  in  other  terms,  individuation  and 
reproduction  are  antagonistic.  But  indi- 
viduation depends  almost  entirely  on  the 
development  and  specialisation  of  the  ner- 
vous system,  through  which  alone  all 
advance  in  instinct,  emotion,  and  intel- 
lect is  rendered  possible.  The  actual  rate 
of  increase  in  man  has  been  determined  by 
the  necessities  of  the  savage  state,  in 
which,  as  in  most  species  of  mammals,  it 
is  usually  what  is  just  required  to  main- 
tain a  limited  average  population.  But 
with  a  true  advance  in  civilisation  the 
average  duration  of  life  increases,  and  the 
possible  increase  of  population  under 
favourable  conditions  becomes  very  great, 
because  fertility  is  greater  than  is  needed 
under  the  new  conditions.  At  present, 
however,  no  general  advance  in  intellec- 
tuality has  taken  place ;  but  that  the 
facts  do  accord  with  the  theory  is  indi- 
cated by  the  common  observation  that 
highly  intellectual  parents  do  not  have 

142 


Progress  Through  Selection 

large  families,  while  the  most  rapid  in- 
crease occurs  in  those  classes  which  are 
engaged  in  healthy  manual  labour. 

But  a  law  founded  on  such  a  broad 
physiological  basis  of  observation  is  sure 
to  continue  in  action,  and  we  may  there- 
fore feel  certain  that  as  the  intellectual 
level  of  the  whole  race  is  raised  by  general 
culture  and  physical  health,  the  law  of 
diminishing  fertility  will  act,  and  will  tend 
in  the  remote  future  to  bring  about  an 
exact  balance  between  the  rate  of  increase 
and  that  of  mortality. 

A  more  immediate  and  effective  check 
to  rapid  increase  of  population  will,  how- 
ever, be  brought  about  by  the  social 
reforms  already  suggested.  When  poverty 
is  abolished  and  neither  economic  nor 
social  advantages  will  be  gained  by  early 
marriage,  there  can  be  no  doubt  it  will  be 
generally  deferred  to  a  later  age.  Still  more 
effective  will  be  the  extension  of  the  period 
of  education  or  training  for  the  whole 
population  for  several  years  longer  than  at 
present,  together  with  the  growth  of  public 
opinion  against  all  marriages  between  per- 
sons who  have  not  yet  begun  the  serious 
work  of  life.  It  would  also  be  an  essential 
part  of  education  to  inculcate  the  delay  of 
143 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

marriage  till  every  opportunity  has  been 
afforded  both  of  the  parties  concerned 
of  becoming  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
each  other  before  undertaking  so  serious  a 
responsibility  as  marriage  usually  involves. 

The  effect  of  even  a  few  years'  delay  of 
marriage  on  population  is  very  consider- 
able. Sir  F.  Galton  has  shown  from  the 
best  statistics  available  that  if  we  compare 
women  married  at  twenty  with  those  at 
twenty-nine,  the  comparative  fertility  is  as 
8  to  5.  But  this  does  not  represent  the  whole 
effect  on  increase  of  population.  When  mar- 
riage is  delayed,  the  time  between  successive 
generations  is  correspondingly  increased  ; 
and  yet  another  effect  in  the  same  direction 
is  produced  by  the  fact  that  the  greater  the 
average  age  of  marriage  the  fewer  genera- 
tions are  alive  at  the  same  time,  and  it  is 
the  combined  effect  of  these  three  factors 
that  determines  the  actual  increase  of  the 
population  due  to  this  cause. 

Sir  F.  Galton  gives  a  remarkable  table 
showing  this  combined  result  of  these 
causes.  He  finds  that  if  one  hundred 
mothers  and  their  daughters  in  each  suc- 
cessive generation  marry  at  twenty,  there 
will  be  an  increase  of  such  mothers  in  each 
successive  generation  of  1*15.  If,  how- 
144 


Progress  Through  Selection 

ever,  they  marry  at  twenty-nine,  each  suc- 
cessive generation  of  mothers  diminishes  in 
the  proportion  of  0*85.  If  this  goes  on  for 
108  years,  the  hundred  mothers  who  marry 
at  twenty  have  increased  to  175,  and  in  216 
years  to  299 ;  while  those  who  marry  at 
twenty-nine  will  have  decreased  to  61  and 
38  respectively.  It  is  therefore  shown  that 
under  present  social  conditions  the  age  of 
marriage  necessary  to  preserve  a  station- 
ary population  will  be  somewhere  between 
twenty  and  twenty-nine.  The  above  figures 
are,  however,  founded  on  special  cases,  and 
the  actual  facts  are  so  complicated  by  the 
number  of  childless  marriages,  the  rate  of 
infantile  mortality  and  other  causes,  that 
they  must  be  taken  only  as  establishing 
a  law  of  rather  rapid  decrease  of  fertility 
with  each  year's  addition  to  the  average 
age  of  marriage  of  the  mother. 

I  have  now,  I  venture  to  hope,  estab- 
lished two  important  principles  in  relation 
to  human  progress.  In  the  first  place,  I 
have  shown  that  modern  ideas  as  to  the 
necessity  of  dealing  directly  with  some  of 
our  glaring  social  evils,  such  as  race 
degeneration  and  the  various  forms  of 
sexual  immorality,  are  fundamentally  wrong 

K  145 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

and  are  doomed  to  failure  so  long  as  their 
fundamental  causes — widespread  poverty, 
destitution,  and  starvation — are  not  greatly 
diminished  and  ultimately  abolished.  I 
have  proved  that  human  nature  is  not  in 
itself  such  a  complete  failure  as  our  modern 
eugenists  seem  to  suppose,  but  that  it  is 
influenced  by  fundamental  laws  which 
under  reasonably  just  and  equal  economic 
conditions  will  automatically  abolish  all 
these  evils. 

In  the  second  place,  I  have  shown  that 
the  dread  of  over-population  as  the  result 
of  the  abolition  of  poverty  is  wholly  and 
utterly  fallacious — a  mere  bugbear  created 
by  ignorance  of  natural  laws  and  of  pre- 
sumption in  thinking  that  we  can  cure 
social  evils  while  leaving  the  man-made 
causes  which  produce  them  unaltered.  The 
three  great  natural  laws  which  all  our 
would-be  reformers  ignore  are  : — 

(1)  That  a  very  moderate  advance  in 
the  average  age  of  marriage — which  would 
certainly  result  from  a  truly  rational  sys- 
tem of  education  combined  with  economic 
equality — necessarily   diminishes   the   rate 
of  increase  of  the  population. 

(2)  That  every  approach  to  educational 
and  economic  equality  by  effecting  a  large 

146 


Progress  Through  Selection 

saving  of  the  lives  of  males  who  now  die 
from  preventable  causes,  combined  with  the 
fact  that  male  births  exceed,  those  of  females, 
would  so  diminish  the  number  of  the  latter 
that  they  would  soon  become  less  instead 
of,  as  now,  more  than  that  of  males  :  that 
this  would  give  them  an  effective  choice  in 
marriage  which  they  do  not  now  possess, 
together  with  the  power  of  delay  which  for 
many  reasons  large  numbers  of  them  would 
exercise. 

(3)  The  law  of  diminishing  fertility  with 
increase  of  brain-work  through  education 
and  training  would  further  tend  to  the 
diminution  of  fertility. 

These  three  natural  causes  all  tend  in 
one  direction — the  equality  of  births  with 
deaths ;  while  their  action  would  be  so 
readily  modified  by  public  opinion  as  to 
obviate  all  danger  of  either  increase  or 
decrease  beyond  what  was  necessary  for 
the  well-being  of  each  community,  nation, 
or  race. 

The  Future  Status  of  Woman 

The  foregoing  statement  of  the  effect 
of  established  natural  laws,  if  allowed  free 
play  under  rational  conditions  of  civilisa- 
tion, clearly  indicates  that  the  position  of 
147 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

woman  in  the  not  distant  future  will  be 
far  higher  and  more  important  than  any 
which  has  been  claimed  for  or  by  her  in 
the  past. 

While  she  will  be  conceded  full  political 
and  social  rights  on  an  equality  with  man, 
she  will  be  placed  in  a  position  of  respon- 
sibility and  power  which  will  render  her 
his  superior,  since  the  future  moral  pro- 
gress of  the  race  will  so  largely  depend 
upon  her  free  choice  in  marriage.  As  time 
goes  on,  and  she  acquires  more  and  more 
economic  independence,  that  alone  will  give 
her  an  effective  choice  which  she  has  never 
had  before.  But  this  choice  will  be  further 
strengthened  by  the  fact  that,  with  ever- 
increasing  approach  to  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity for  every  child  born  in  our  country, 
that  terrible  excess  of  male  deaths,  in  boy- 
hood and  early  manhood  especially,  due  to 
various  preventable  causes,  will  disappear, 
and  change  the  present  majority  of  women 
to  a  majority  of  men.  This  will  lead  to  a 
greater  rivalry  for  wives,  and  will  give  to 
women  the  power  of  rejecting  all  the  lower 
types  of  character  among  their  suitors. 

It  will  be  their  special  duty  so  to  mould 
public  opinion,  through  home  training  and 
social  influence,  as  to  render  the  women  of 
148 


Progress  Through  Selection 

the  future  the  regenerators  of  the  entire 
human  race.  We  hope  and  believe  that 
they  will  be  fully  equal  to  the  high  and 
responsible  position  which,  in  accordance 
with  natural  laws,  they  will  be  called  upon 
to  fulfil. 

The  certainty  that  this  powerful  selec- 
tive agency  will  come  into  existence  just 
in  proportion  as  we  reform  our  existing 
social  system  by  the  abolition  of  poverty 
and  the  establishment  of  full  equality  of 
opportunity  in  education  and  economic 
position,  demonstrates  that  Nature — or  the 
Universal  Mind — has  not  failed  or  bungled 
our  world  so  completely  as  to  require 
the  weak  and  ignorant  efforts  of  the 
eugenists  to  set  it  right,  while  leaving 
the  great  fundamental  causes  of  all  exist- 
ing social  evils  absolutely  untouched.  Let 
them  devote  all  their  energies  to  purify- 
ing this  whitened  sepulchre  of  destitution 
and  ignorance,  and  the  beneficent  laws  of 
human  nature  will  themselves  bring  about 
the  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  ad- 
vancement of  our  race. 


149 


CHAPTER   XVII 

HOW   TO    INITIATE    AN    ERA    OF  MORAL 
PROGRESS 

IN  Chapters  VIII  to  XII  of  this  volume  I 
have  given  in  briefest  outline  a  summary 
of  the  growth  during  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury of  the  actual  social  environment  in 
the  midst  of  which  we  live. 

We  see  a  continuous  advance  of  man's 
power  to  utilise  the  forces  of  Nature,  to 
an  extent  which  surpasses  everything  he 
had  been  able  to  do  during  all  the  pre- 
ceding centuries  of  his  recorded  history. 

We  also  see  that  the  result  of  this 
vast  economic  revolution  has  been  almost 
wholly  evil. 

We  see  that  this  hundredfold  increase 
of  wealth,  amply  sufficient  to  provide 
necessaries,  comforts,  and  all  beneficial 
refinements  and  luxuries  for  our  whole 
population,  has  been  distributed  with  such 
gross  injustice  that  the  actual  condition 
of  those  who  produce  all  this  wealth  has 
become  worse  and  worse,  no  efficient 

150 


An  Era  of  Moral  Progress 

arrangements  having  been  made  that  from 
the  overflowing  abundance  produced  all 
should  receive  the  mere  essentials  of  a 
healthy  and  happy  existence. 

We  have  seen  huge  cities  grow  up, 
every  one  of  them  with  their  overcrowded, 
insanitary  slums,  where  men,  women,  and 
children  die  prematurely  as  surely  as 
though  a  body  of  secret  poisoners  were 
constantly  at  work  to  destroy  them. 

We  see  thousands  of  girls  compelled  by 
starvation  to  work  in  such  an  empoisoned 
environment  as  to  produce  horribly  pain- 
ful and  disfiguring  disease,  which  is  often 
fatal  in  early  youth,  or  in  what  ought  to 
have  been,  and  what  might  have  been, 
the  period  of  maximum  enjoyment  of 
their  womanhood.  And  to  this  very  day 
no  efficient  steps  have  been  taken  to 
abolish  these  conditions. 

We  see  millions  still  struggling  in  vain 
for  a  sufficiency  of  the  bare  necessaries 
of  life  (which  in  their  misery  is  all  they 
ask),  often  culminating  in  actual  starva- 
tion, or  in  suicide  to  which  they  are 
driven  by  the  dread  of  starvation. 
Yet  our  Governments,  selected  from 
among  the  most  educated,  the  most 
talented,  the  wealthiest  of  the  country, 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

with  absolute  power  to  make  what  laws 
and  regulations  they  please,  and  an  over- 
flowing fund  of  accumulated  wealth  to 
draw  upon,  do  nothing,  although  more 
people  die  annually  of  want  than  are 
killed  in  a  great  war,  and  more  chil- 
dren than  could  be  slaughtered  by  many 
Herods. 

And  while  all  this  goes  on  in  the 
depths,  where — 

"  Pale  anguish  keeps  the  heavy  gate, 
And  the  Warder  is  Despair" — 

a  little  higher  up,  among  the  middle-men 
distributors  of  the  necessaries  and  luxuries 
of  life,  bribery,  adulteration,  and  various 
forms  of  petty  dishonesty  are  rampant. 

And  higher  yet,  among  the  great 
Capitalists,  the  merchant  Princes,  the  Cap- 
tains of  industry,  we  find  hard  task- 
masters who  drive  down  wages  below 
the  level  of  bare  subsistence,  and  who 
support  a  more  gigantic  and  widespread 
system  of  gambling  than  the  world  has 
ever  seen. 

And,    finally,    our    administration    of 

what  we  call  "  Justice  "  (and  of  which  we 

are  so  proud  because  our  judges  cannot 

be   bribed)    is   utterly   unjust,    because   it 

152 


An  Era  of  Moral  Progress 

is  based  on  a  system  of  money  fees  at 
every  step;  because  it  is  so  cumbrous 
and  full  of  technicalities  as  to  need  the 
employment  of  attorneys  and  counsel  at 
great  cost,  and  because  all  petty  offences 
are  punishable  by  fine  or  imprisonment, 
which  makes  poverty  itself  a  crime  while 
it  allows  those  with  money  to  go  prac- 
tically free. 

Taking  account  of  these  various  groups 
of  undoubted  facts,  many  of  which  are  so 
gross,  so  terrible,  that  they  cannot  be  over- 
stated, it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  our 
whole  system  of  society  is  rotten  from  top 
to  bottom,  and  the  Social  Environment  as  a 
whole,  in  relation  to  our  possibilities  and 
our  claims,  is  the  worst  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen. 

Such  are  the  evil  products  of  the  social 
environment  we  have  ourselves  created 
in  the  course  of  a  single  century.  We 
have  seen  it  going  from  bad  to  worse,  and 
have  applied  petty  remedies  here  and  there 
during  the  whole  period ;  but  the  evils 
have  continued  to  increase.  It  has  now 
become  clear  to  the  more  intelligent  of 
the  workers  that  if  we  wish  to  improve  it 
— if  we  wish  to  prevent  it  from  getting 
even  worse  than  it  is — we  must  deal  with 

K*  153 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress   [CH. 

the  root-causes  of  the  evil  and,  so  far  as 
possible,  reverse  the  conditions  which  are 
so  demonstrably  bad,  such  hideous  failures. 
And,  fortunately,  this  is  by  no  means  so 
difficult  as  it  may  seem  to  be,  because  a 
large  body  of  our  thinkers  and  a  consider- 
able number  of  our  workers  see  clearly 
what  these  root-causes  are,  and,  less 
clearly,  how  to  remedy  them.  They  will, 
however,  give  their  energetic  support  to 
any  Government  that  devotes  itself  to  the 
task  of  remedying  them.  The  following 
are  my  own  views  as  to  how  the  problem 
must  be  attacked  in  order  to  solve  it 
thoroughly  and  permanently. 


The  Root-cause  and  the  Remedy 

If  we  review  with  care  the  long  train 
of  social  evils  which  have  grown  up  dur- 
ing the  nineteenth  century,  we  shall  find 
that  every  one  of  them,  however  diverse 
in  their  nature  and  results,  is  due  to  the 
same  general  cause,  which  may  be  defined 
or  stated  in  a  variety  of  different  ways : 

(i)  They  are  due,  broadly  and  gener- 
ally, to  our  living  under  a  system  of 
universal  competition  for  the  means  of 
154 


An  Era  of  Moral  Progress 

existence,  the  remedy  for  which  is  equally 
universal  co-operation. 

(2)  It  may  be  also  denned  as  a  system 
of    economic    antagonism,    as    of    enemies, 
the   remedy  being   a   system   of   economic 
brotherhood,   as   of   a   great   family,   or   of 
friends. 

(3)  Our  system  is  also  one  of  monopoly 
by  a  few  of  all  the  means  of  existence : 
the  land,  without  access  to  which  no  life 
is  possible ;    and  capital,  or  the  results  of 
stored-up    labour,    which    is    now    in    the 
possession  of  a  limited  number  of  capital- 
ists   and    therefore    is    also    a    monopoly. 
The  remedy  is  freedom  of  access  to  land 
and  capital  for  all. 

(4)  Also,  it  may  be  denned  as  social 
injustice,    inasmuch    as    the  few  in    each 
generation    are    allowed    to     inherit    the 
stored-up  wealth  of  all  preceding  genera- 
tions,   while    the    many    inherit    nothing. 
The  remedy  is  to  adopt  the  principle  of 
equality  of  opportunity  for  all,  or  of  uni- 
versal inheritance  by  the  State  in  trust  for 
the  whole  Community. 

These  four  statements  of  the  existing 

causes   of   all   our   social   evils   cannot,    I 

believe,  be  controverted,  and  the  remedies 

for    them    may    be    condensed    into    one 

J55 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress  [CH. 

general  proposition:  that  it  is  the  first 
duty  (in  importance)  of  a  civilised  Govern- 
ment to  organise  the  labour  of  the  whole 
community  for  the  equal  good  of  all ;  but 
it  is  also  their  first  duty  (in  time)  to  take 
immediate  steps  to  abolish  death  by  star- 
vation and  by  preventable  disease  due  to 
insanitary  dwellings  and  dangerous  em- 
ployments, while  carefully  elaborating  the 
permanent  remedy  for  want  in  the  midst 
of  wealth. 

I  myself  have  pointed  out  how  these 
two  ends  may  be  best  achieved,  and  hope 
to  elaborate  them.  In  the  meantime,  I 
call  attention  to  Mr.  Standish  O'Grady's 
letter  "  To  the  Leaders  of  Labour  "  in  The 
New  Age  of  November  2ist,  1912,  in  which, 
after  referring  to  the  very  natural  dread  by 
the  rich  of  any  such  radical  reorganisation 
of  Society,  as  leading  to  their  own  financial 
ruin  (which  it  certainly  need  not  do),  he 
makes  the  following  suggestive  statement, 
with  which  I  hope  all  my  readers  will  agree : 

"  But  what  they  fail  to  perceive  is,  that,  in  a 
world  like  this,  made  by  infinite  goodness  and  wisdom, 
Right  is  always  the  great  stand-by  for  men  and  for 
Nations,  and  for  the  rich  as  well  as  for  the  poor ; 
and  that  Wrong,  sooner  or  later,  ends  in  misery  and 
destruction:" 

156 


An  Era  of  Moral  Progress 

That  is  sound  moral  teaching.  We 
have  been  doing  the  Wrong  for  the  past 
century,  and  we  have  reaped,  and  are 
reaping,  "misery  and  destruction."  It  is 
time  that  we  changed  our  methods,  which 
are  all  (as  I  think  I  have  sufficiently 
pointed  out)  fundamentally  Wrong,  radi- 
cally Unjust,  wholly  Immoral. 

We  have  ourselves  created  an  im- 
moral or  unmoral  Social  Environment.  To 
undo  its  inevitable  results  we  must  re- 
verse our  course.  We  must  see  that  all 
our  economic  legislation,  all  our  social 
reforms,  are  in  the  very  opposite  direction 
to  those  hitherto  adopted,  and  that  they 
tend  in  the  direction  of  one  or  other  of 
the  four  fundamental  remedies  I  have 
suggested.  In  this  way  only  can  we  hope 
to  change  our  existing  immoral  environ- 
ment into  a  moral  one,  and  initiate  a  new 
era  of  Moral  Progress. 

In  Chapters  XIII  to  XVI I  have  shown 
that  the  well-established  laws  of  Evolu- 
tion as  they  really  apply  to  mankind  are 
all  favourable  to  the  advance  of  true 
Civilisation  and  of  Morality.  Our  exist- 
ing competitive  and  antagonistic  Social 
System  alone  neutralises  their  beneficent 
157 


Environment  and  Moral  Progress 

operation.  That  System  must  therefore 
be  radically  changed  into  one  of  brotherly 
co-operation  and  co-ordination  for  the 
equal  good  of  all.  To  succeed  we  must 
make  this  principle  our  guide  and  our 
pole  star  in  all  Social  legislation. 


158 


Index 


ACQUIRED  characters,   definition 

of,  104 
characters,  on  the  heredity 

of,  103 

Adaptation,  106 
Adulteration,  55 
Alcoholism,  deaths  from,  67 
in  women,  68 
statistics  of,  68 
America,    Central,    architecture 

of,  34 
Animals,       natural       selection 

among,  75 

Anthropological  Review,  99 
Apes,   anthropoid,   affinity  with 

man,  93 
Aquatic  forms  of  life,  increase 

of,  85 

Archimedes,  34 

Australian      aborigines,      char- 
acter of,  33 
and  Caucasians,  34 


BARNARDO,  Dr.,  141 

Beaver,  95 

Bimana,  94 

Brah6,  Tycho,  23 

Brain  as  organ  of  the  mind,  94 

Bribery,  56 

Browning's,    Mrs.,    Cry   of   the 

Children,  42 
Buddha,  8 


CAPITALISM,  152 

Caucasians       and       Australian 
aborigines,  34 


Causes  of  economic  evils,  154 
Chambers 's  Vestiges         of 

Creation,  81 
Character,  definition  of,  4 

difficulty  of  knowing   good 
from  bad,  5 

mental  faculties  and,  5 

morality  based  upon,  5 

not  cumulative,   37 

of  savage  races,  32 

permanence  of,  8 

public  opinion  and,  36 

selective  agency  to  improve, 
36 

subject  to  variation,  36 

transmission  of,  4,  7,  36 

variability  and,  82 
Characters,  acquired,  definition 
of,  104 

acquired,  heredity  of,  103 

innate,  104,  no 

heredity  of,  no 
Chemical  trades,  evils  of,  50 
Child  labour,  evils  of,  41,  43 
Church,  the  work  of  the,  118 
Civil  law  system,  62 
Civilisation    during    i8th    cen- 
tury, 40 

evolution  and,  157 

of  ancient  Egypt,  15,  35 

of  ancient  India,  8 

of  ancient  Mesopotamia,   15 
Civilisations,  ancient,  112 
Classical  writers,  our  indebted- 
ness to,  115 
Coal  mines,  accidents  in,  43 

child  labour  in,  43 

female  workers  in,  43 


159 


Index 


Coal  mines,  insecurity  in,  43 

who  the,  belong  to,  45 
Commercial  system,   immorality 

of  our,  55 
Companies,    Limited    Liability, 

56 

Competition,  154 
Conduct,  character  and,  5 

environment  and,  6 
Confucius,  8 

Cook,   Captain,   opinion   of,   on 
natives  of  Friendly  Isles, 

3* 

Co-operation,  154,  160 
Criminal  law  system,  64 
Crnciferae  family,   increase  of, 

84 

Curr,  Mr.,  opinion  of,  on  Aus- 
tralian aborigines,  33 
Cutlery  trade,  evils  of,  50 


Daily  Citisen  quoted,  51,  5* 
Darwin  and  heredity,  103 

and    natural    selection,    87, 

93.  "5 
and  transference  of  selection 

to  mind,  99 
and  variability,  82 
on  Tahitians,  32 
Darwin's  Descent  of  Man,    93, 

"5 

Origin  of  Sfecies,  82 
theory  of  Pangenesis,  104 
Darwinism     and     Lamarekism, 

78,  81 

and  variability,  82 
objections  to,  85,  90 
(See    also    Evolution,    Lam- 
arekism, Natural  selection, 
etc.) 

Deadly  trades,  50 
Dell's,    J.    H-,    Dawning    Grey 

quoted,  117 
Descent  of  Han,   Darwin's,  93, 

"5 

Divine  influx  into  man,  92,  115, 

119 

Divorce,  74 

Dutt,  Mr.  Romesh,  quoted,  q 
Dwellings,  insanitary,  47 


ECONOMIC  advance,  evils  of,  150 
antagonism,  155 
brotherhood,  155 
evils,  causes  of,  154 
remedies  for,  154 
Education,       effects      of,       not 

hereditary,  in,  114 
extension  of  period  of,   143 
national  system  of,  needed, 

146 

of  the  world,  in 
Egypt,    astronomy    in    ancient, 

18 
civilisation  of   ancient,    15, 

35 

intellect  in  ancient,  16 
Eighteenth    century,    stationary 

epoch,  40,  122 
Elephants,  increase  of,  85 
Environment,   laws  of   heredity 

and,  103 

modified  by  man,  95 
not   always   responsible   for 

specialisation,   106 
remedies,  154 
social,  and  conduct,  6 
social,  character  of,  153 
social,  during  ic^th  century 

40 
social,  evils  of,   causes  of, 

*54 

Equality  of  opportunity,  155 
Erraan,  Prof.  Adolf,  quoted,  26 
Euclid,  34 
Eugenics,  methods  of,  127 

science    of,    established    by 

Sir  F.  Gal  ton,  127 
Rugenists,  149 
Evil,    origin    of,    problem    of, 

III 

possible  solution  of,  119 
Evolution,  a  rational  theory,  81 
acceptance  of,  81 
and  civilisation,  157 
Lamarekism  and,  81 
Chambers  and,  81 
Darwin  and,  81 
exposition  of,    by    Spencer, 
tl 


natural  selection  and,  77 
objections  to,  81,  90 


1 60 


Index 


Evolution  variability  of  species, 
8,  82 

(See  also  Darwinism, 
Lamarckism,  Natural 
selection,  etc.) 


FACTORY    system,     development 

of,  41 
evils  of,  41 

Fertility,    law   of   diminishing, 
144,  147 

Fines  v.  imprisonment,  65 

Friendly  Isles,  natives  of,  char- 
acter of,  32 


GALTON,  SIR  FRANCIS,  37 

eugenic  theory  of,  127 

on  laws  of  increase  of  popu- 
lation, 127 

Galvanising  trade,  evils  of,  51 
Gambling,  immorality  of,  59 

in  trade,  58 

inconsistent  attitude  to,  59 

Stock  Exchange,  59 
Genius,  not  cumulative,  37 

not   necessarily    hereditary, 

37 ;  examples,  38 
Gothic  architecture,  34 
Greece,  121 

architecture  of  ancient,  34 


HEREDITY  ajid  genius,  37 

and     "recession    to    medi- 
ocrity," 38 

beneficence  of  law  of,  115 

Darwin  and,   103 

importance  of  siibject,  103 

Lamarck  and,  104 

laws   of,    and   environment, 
103 

misconceptions      regarding, 
103 

of  innate  characters,  no 
Herschel,  Sir  John,  82 
Homer,  8 
Hominidae,  94 
Human  nature,  faculties  of,  100 


IMPRISONMENT  v.  fines,  65 
India,  architecture  of  ancient,  34 

intelligence  and  morality  in 
ancient,  9,  n,  15 

religious      conceptions      in 

ancient,  n 
Individuation,  142 
Infantile        mortality,         Prof. 
Petrie  on,  140 

statistics  of,  47,  72 
Injustice,  social,  155 
Innate  characters,  104 

heredity  of,  no 
Insanitary  dwellings,  47 
Intellect  in  ancient  India,  9,  n, 

permanence  of,  15 
Intellectual         advance         not 
general,  142 


JESUS  CHRIST,  116 
Justice,  administration  of,  62 
immorality  of,  66,  152 


LAMARCK  and  evolution,  81 

and  heredity,  104 
Lamarckism,  78,  89 

and  Darwinism,  78 

insufficiency  of,  as  a  theory, 

80 

Land,  access  to,  155 
Language,  28 

diversity  of,    120 

lowest  races  possess,  31 
Law,  civil,  system,  62 

criminal,   system,  64 

partiality  of  the,   65 
Layard,  Sir  H.,  16 
Le  Coute,   Prof.,  quoted,   139 
Lead  glaze  trade,  evils  of,  50 
Lead  poisoning  of  workers,  51 
Life-destroying  trades,  47 
LyelPs    Principles    of    Geology 
quoted,  78 


MAHA-BHARATA,     Indian     epic, 

quoted,  8 
Malthus,  139 


161 


Index 


Mammals,      classification      of, 

94 

Man,   affinity  of,  with  anthro- 
poid apes,  93 

and  marriage,  133 

dignity  of,  91 

Divine  influx  into,  92,  115, 
119 

external  differences  between, 
and  apes,  93 

modifies    his    environment, 

95  , 
moral  sense  in,  91 

nature  of,  stationary,   102 

position  of,  91 

predominance  of  mind  in, 
98 

preparation  of,  for  pro- 
gress, 120 

selection  transferred  to  mind 
in,  99 

three   great  races  of,    100 

triumph  of,    over    Nature, 

.95.  'So 
Marriage,  143 

freedom   of,    insisted   upon, 

128 

man  and,    133 
women  and,  133 
Mental    faculties    in    formation 

of  character,  5 
Mesopotamia,      civilisation      of 

ancient,   15 
Mind,  brain  the  organ  of  the, 

94       . 
predominance   of,    in   man, 

98 
selection  transferred  tox  in 

man,  99 

Monier -Williams,   Sir  M.,    n 
Monopoly,  155 
Moral  degradation,   indications 

of,   67 

progress,   definition  of,   i 
progress,  initiating  new  era 

of,  150 
progress  through  new  form 

of  selection,  125 
sense  in  man,  91 
Morality  amongst  the  ancients, 
8 


Morality  based  upon  character, 
based  upon  human  nature, 

evolution  and,  157 
in  ancient  India,  9 
no  definite  advance  in,  36 
product  of  environment,  3 
savages  and,  31 
standards  of,  varying,  2 
Morals,  definition  of,  i 


NATURAL  selection,   among   ani- 
mals, 75 

and  evolution,  77 
and  origin  of  species,  82 
explanation  of,  75,  87 
modification  of,  by  man,  96, 

99 

modified  by  mind,  93 

new  form  of,  125 

process  of,  112 

two  modes  of,  125 
Nineteenth     century,     environ- 
ment during,  40 

movements  during,  122 

reaction       against       forced 
civilisation  during,  41 


O'GxADY,  MB.  S.,  quoted,  156 
Oliver's,    Sir    T.,    Diseases    of 

Occupation,  53 
Organic     nature,     development 

of,  109 

indivisibility  of,  109 
Origin    of    Species,    Darwin's, 

essential  features  of,  82 
Origin      of      species,      natural 

selection   essential    factor 

in,  82 

Overcrowding,   statistics  of,   48 
Owen,  Sir  Richard,  and  man's 

affinity  with  apes,  94 


Pall  Mall  Gazette,  reply  to,  76 
Pangenesis,  theory  of,  104 
Park,  Mungo,  101 
Petrie,  Prof.,  quoted,  139 


162 


Index 


Plato,  8,  116 

Poor   Law,    immorality  of  the, 

65 
Population,    increase    of,    laws 

governing,   141 
social  reform  and,  138 
Poverty,  130,  143,  151 
Polynesian   races,   character  of, 

33 

Preventable     deaths,     responsi- 
bility for,  43 
Primates,  94 

Proctor,  Mr.  R.  A.,  quoted,   18 

Progress,  moral,  definition  of,  i 

moral,   how  to   initiate  era 

of,  150 
moral,  through  new  form  of 

selection,  125 
Prostitution,  73 

Pyramid  of  Gizeh  as  observa- 
tory, 23 
purpose  of,  17 
structure  of,  19 


QUADRUMANA,    94 


RAWLINSON,  16 

Reade's,    Martyrdom    of    Man, 

"3 

"  Recession  to  mediocrity,"  here- 
dity and,  38 

Religious  conceptions  in  ancient 
India,  n 

Remedies    for    economic    evils, 

J54 

Reproduction,   142 

Rich,  dread  of,  to  social  reor- 
ganisation, 156 

Rome,  i2i 


SAVAGE  races,  morality  of,  31 
Selection,  artificial,  105,  127 

free,  in  marriage,  133 
Selection,     natural,    action    of, 
transferred    to    mind    in 
man,  99 
amongst  animals,  75 


163 


Selection,    natural,    and   origin 

of  species,  82 
explanation  of,  75,  87 
modifier  .ion  of,  by  man,  96, 

99 

modified  ~y  mind,  93 
process  of,  112 
two  modes  of,  125 
Selection,  new  form  of,  125 

sexual,  125 
Selective     agency     to     improve 

character,  36 

Sherard's,  Mr.  R.  H.,  White 
Slaves  of  England,  51 
(note) 

Slavery,  2,  115 
Slums,  47,   151 

Smyth,  Piazzi,  on  Pyramids,  18 
Snowden,  Philip,  53 
Social  environment  and  conduct, 

6 

character  of,   153 
during  igth  century,  40 
evils  of,  causes  and  remedies 

of,  154 
reorganisation,      the      rich 

and,  156 

reform,      143 ;     and     over- 
population,  138 
Socrates,  8 

Species,  increase  of,  82,  84 
origin  of,  natural  selection, 

and,  8a 

variability  of,  82 
Speech  as  proof  of  intelligence, 

28 

lowest  races  possess,  31 
origin  and  development  of, 

29 

Spencer,  Herbert,  89,  99,   103 
exposition    of    evolutionary 

argument  by,  81 
on  laws  of  increase  of  popu- 
lation,  141 

Stanley,  Hiram  M.,  quoted,  128 
Struggle  for  existence,  85,  86 
Suicide,  statistics  of,  70 
Survival  of  the  fittest,   85,   87, 

J39 

"  Survival  value,"  39 
Swedenborg,  137 


Index 


TAHITI  ANS,  character  of,  32 
Tinning  trade,  evils  of,  51 


UNHEALTHY  trades,  50 
Universe,  development  and  pur- 
pose of,  119 


VAFIABILITY,  character  and,  36 

basic  law  of  nature,   96 

explanation  of,  82 

of  species,  82 

purpose  of,  90 
Vedas,  quoted,  n 


WAS,  74 


Wealth,  increase  of,  41,  150 
Webb,  Mr.  Sidney,  quoted,  65 
Women  and  marriage,  133 

excess   in  numbers  of,    134, 

'47 

future  status  of,  147 
in  trade,  151 
Workmen's  compensation,   Prof. 

Petrie  on,  139 

Writing    as    proof    of    intelli- 
gence, 28 

origin  and  development  of, 
29 


ZOOPHYTES,  95 
Zymotic  diseases,  47 


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